


Man Without Roots

by pinkvinyls



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alpha Uchiha Sasuke, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Ethnic Persecution, Genocide, Identity Reveal, M/M, Namikaze Minato Lives, Omega Uzumaki Naruto, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:54:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25806934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkvinyls/pseuds/pinkvinyls
Summary: Sasuke returns to Konoha under a false name and his only objective is to take his revenge against the very village that cost him his family and home, his everything. For that, he will rise in the ranks of the Konoha Shinobi and what better way is there to succeed in this corrupt system than to seduce the omega son of the current Hokage?
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 84
Kudos: 311





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So my friend blackmailed me into my 100th naruto rewatch and this new idea got hold of me, now I'm writing another wip 🙃
> 
> My friend also wanted me to add a/b/o to the story and while I will incorporate its themes into the story, it won't change the entire personality of the characters.
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated ;)

The sun is beating down on his back, burning the skin at his nape, and his back aches under the heavy weight of his traveler’s bag, but Sasuke barely pays it any mind, he has spent years working on rice fields under the hot, vaulting sun of Otogakure, he is used to the heat, to the exertion of walking miles carrying pounds of rice without rest. This is nothing in comparison.

His mind is much too occupied by the building sense of dread and anger to care for such simple matters as pain and exhaustion. With a deep breath, he grabs the strap of his bag and tightens his grip, nails buried in its hard fabric. After countless days on the road, after he has ventured through forests, sailed over rivers and fought stray vagabonds on his path, he can finally see the high walls of Konohagakure, cutting into the sky and distorting the nature of the surrounding forest with its bleak stones. 

How long has it been? He had been a child the last time he was here and he had been a child when he had been forced to flee through a narrow and crumbling tunnel of the very same wall. Now he returns, not as the weak and frightened child of the past, but as a man with the heavy duty that comes with being the last standing and only alpha of his family. 

His steps are not rushed, but rather heavy and secure, leaving indentations on the ground beneath, trails to follow, to show that he has nothing to hide and soon the enormous gate to Konoha also comes into his sight, a powerful work of architecture and highly surveilled as well, he thinks as his gaze glides to its sides, where towers erupt skywards. He remains calm as he counts the Shinobi guarding the only official entrance to the village and tries to affect the aura of an exhausted traveler who has finally reached his destination, a traveler with no ill-meaning or ulterior motivations. 

As Sasuke gets closer and closer, he allows his shoulders to slouch and breathes more harshly, fanning himself from time to time to combat the heat. He stops in his tracks as soon as he arrives at the gate and regards the two guards with a cool gaze, there is no need to overdo his act. 

Both beta men have brown hair and dark eyes, but their similarities end there as Sasuke notices the moment they begin to speak, albeit not with him, but with each other. He tries to remain patient, however, they soon reach the point where no one would still wait for them to finish. 

“I come here with crucial information regarding the state's enemy Orochimaru. I request an audience with your current Hokage,” he says and brings his hand down on the wooden counter that separates them to cut through their conversation. “It’s an urgent matter.”

They immediately fall silent and give him a scrutinizing look up and down his body. The one with his hair combed down, who also seems to be the more serious one out of the two, straightens his back and steps out of their little open cottage. “Who are you?”

“My name is Shinichi, I have no last name to spare and I sail from a neighbouring village of Otogakure,” he replies, returning the guard’s stare with a composed expression. “I will say more once I have spoken with the Hokage.”

The man nods at him and turns to his comrade. “Kotetsu, you stay here and I’ll bring him to the Tower.”

“You sure, Izumo?” Kotetsu asks, giving him a sceptical look. 

Izumo nods and faces him again. “Follow me, Shinichi.”

The Tower, from what Sasuke remembers, stands in the center of the village, a straight and direct distance away from the gate. It’s barely visible from where his district once stood, that much he knows. 

The gate opens and slowly, Konohagure is revealed to him with its colourful and diverse buildings, its wide and busy streets and its many ignorant people who stroll through the village, unaware of the blood, the pain that flows through every inch of this wretched place. 

Sasuke clenches his jaw and takes his eyes off the people, he forces himself to stare ahead, focusing on the red sigil at Izumo’s back, carried with pride and without even an ounce of fear. The corners of his mouth quirk up in a bitter smile, he has to stop searching for things that will only make him mad, he has only been here a few minutes and he will have to spend far more time here after all. 

So he thinks to himself that he, an Uchiha, has made it into the village that has killed and hunted them down for years, and he, an Uchiha, will speak to the most powerful Shinobi, the leader of Konoha, and he will make them trust and need him, he will get them to let him fight side by side with them. He will infiltrate this village and burn it down to the ground just as they have done to his family.

Walking down these streets is much more fun with that thought in mind, it excites him, it makes him feel giddy to finally implement the plan he has been planning since his childhood. 

* * *

The Hokage room is lit alight with the sunlight that filters through the wide window, but it’s not exposing him to the many Shinobi who regard him with open suspicion, instead he feels emboldened by the heat of it, it’s fire being added to his own burning flame, rejuvenating his ambition, his drive, oh, he enjoys the light, but what he detests are the many scents of alphas and betas rising into the air and clogging up his nose. He knows they are doing it on purpose, emitting more than is natural, he considers it a foul ploy to get under his skin and too bad that it’s completely useless.

The only alpha scent that is not heightened is the one of the Hokage, not the dead Third anymore, but the Fourth, the unsung hero of the village. His face seems deceptively kind, no hard lines are etched deep into his skin as he recalls from the Third, no frown too, just an open but serious expression with blue eyes that steadily stare into his, and his blond hair shines like a halo under the sunlight. At that thought, he bites the inside of his mouth to hold back a snort.

“You wanted to speak to me,” the Fourth says and his voice is just as calm and collected as he looks, almost soft even, were it not for the hard determination flowing through his every word. “So speak.”

Sasuke tilts his head up slightly and stands up straighter. “I live in the Land of Rice Fields and as you must know, my land is under the control of Orochimaru and his henchmen. They do routine raids across the whole nation and collect money from the farmers whose fields they have just destroyed. They kill, they maim, they steal. They have been terrorizing us for years now. We had no other choice but to organize ourselves and so we founded a group to rebel against the Oto-nins. We infiltrated their network and have multiple informants installed into the deeper circles of Orochimaru’s men. I come with new information, news that concern your beloved Konohagakure.”

The Fourth moves forward in his chair and leans on the table with his elbows, intertwining his hands as he asks, “What information?”

“He is forming alliances with your enemies,” Sasuke answers, solemn and grave, adding weight to his words and letting them settle on all these Konoha dogs. They don’t ask him outright, but he knows what they want to know. “The Akatsuki. His next aim will be to ally himself with the Raikage, but you can intervene before that happens, he hasn’t made his first steps yet.”

A few moments of tense silence pass, stretching through the already overfilled room, Sasuke watches them as they squirm in their seats, as they exchange worried glances with each other and savors the taste of their fear on his tongue. 

A beta man with two scars on the right side of his face and dark hair tied up into a ponytail steps forward from his position from behind the Hokage. “What exactly are you hoping to get out of this?”

A little smile plays at his lips as he answers, “We have a common enemy. I want to take Orochimaru down, but neither I nor the rest of my village have the means to do so, Konoha does and I simply want us to help each other out.”

“And how shall that happen?”

“We offer you a steady stream of new information and you offer me training as well as a secure position in your unit.”

The Fourth leans back on his chair and brings his hand to his face, rubbing his temples as he watches him through the slits between his fingers. He drops his hand and stands up from his chair. Then he walks around the table and comes to stand right in front of him. “Fine, we have a deal,” he says with his arm raised for a handshake.

Sasuke takes the outstretched hand into his. The Fourth’s grip is strong, but not imposing, perfectly polite and respectful. He returns it with the same strength and steps back, not wanting to spend another second in close proximity to a Hokage. He makes sure to make his retreat appear demure by moving slowly and carefully. 

“I will assign you a Jonin who will guard you and look after your training, he’ll be your temporary Sensei, so to speak,” the Fourth explains and loudly calls out, “Come in.”

Sasuke turns around and follows his gaze, his eyes land on the wide door which is swiftly pushed open. A grey-haired beta man languidly steps inside, his grey eyes are at half mast as they look at him with cool and almost disinterested curiosity. The lower half of his face and his left eye are covered by dark fabric, but Sasuke knows what lies beneath his forehead protector. This is Hatake Kakashi, the copy cat ninja, the non-Uchiha with the Sharingan, the only living person who is allowed to use its power without damning himself to execution by Konoha-nins and their allies. At least he has the decency to cover up his degeneracy, a thief is what he is and nothing else. All his merits, all his achievements were made with the blood of the Uchiha. 

Sasuke bites the inside of his mouth and feels his hands tense up, but he keeps them open palmed and relaxed next to his body. He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a slow exhale. “Hatake Kakashi,” he says in the end, voice just the tiniest bit strained as he presses the words out of his mouth. “Who would have thought that I would be honored with the opportunity to train under such a famous ninja?”

“Don’t trust the rumours, boy, I’m not as good at what I do as they claim,” Hatake replies. 

_ I don’t doubt it, _ Sasuke thinks with contempt. Still he raises his hand for a greeting and bites back on his anger. Hatake barely holds his hand for a second before he lets go and taps him on his shoulder as he passes him by. 

“Take him to one of our classified guest houses. You are to move in with him and train him,” the Fourth commands. 

“I’m already training your son, Minato-Sensei,” Hatake replies and shakes his head. “You know he doesn’t like to share, especially when he’s finally got me to train him all alone.”

“He’ll understand, I’ll speak to him.” The Fourth gives him a mischievous smile. “I’m sorry, there seems to be no reasons left at all to object any longer.”

Hatake’s shoulders slouch and he lets out a long and dramatic sigh before turning around and tapping Sasuke on the shoulder again. “Follow me,” he calls out, already out of the room and halfway down the hallway. 

Awesome, he won’t just have to train with one of his most despised people, he also has been afforded the chance to learn someone completely new to hate. 

The Hokage’s son, _ how delightful. _

* * *

The guest house they have chosen for him is close to the outskirts of the village, but not far enough to be anywhere near the borders. He knows the chosen district, he had been here often as a child, passing through these streets to get to the river that runs through the northern side of the village. He shuts his eyes close then and wills those memories away, he can’t afford to waste any thoughts to his nostalgia, they will only weaken his cover. 

“And this is your kitchen,” he hears Hatake say, voice so bored and monotone that Sasuke drowns it out right away. He doesn’t care how this house looks, he has already received the only necessary information, he knows where it stands. 

“Thank you, Hatake,” he says once the man is done with his half-assed tour. 

“I will be training you, you can just call me Kakashi-Sensei, I don’t mind, if you don’t either. It’s not that important either way.”

“I will consider it,” he replies with a raised brow, giving the man a dubious look.

The man furrows his brows and turns to him. “What was your name again?”

“My name is Shinichi and before you ask, no, I have no last name.”

“One truth, huh?” Hatake mutters.

“No, the name was actually given to me to mean faithful first son,” Sasuke corrects, the corners of his mouth quirk up. 

“Ah, interesting,” Hatake comments, looking nothing but bored. He turns around and starts to walk to the door.

“When and where will we start training?” he asks before the man is gone for good. 

“Tomorrow at 7 am at the northern training site, ask around and people will lead the way. Be there on time, please,” Hatake calls out, already gone off his way to his own room. 

It’s only just afternoon, but he isn’t in the mood to go out exploring, he has seen more than enough of this village today, he doesn’t want to see even more. 

A long shower and bedtime will do. As far as Hatake knows, he’s been travelling for days on end, so it’s more than understandable for him to want to stay inside. 

* * *

The night passes slowly and Sasuke already has much to think about, it’s not difficult for him to be tormented by his own mind, it knows how to keep him on his toes at all times, his life has offered it more than enough resources and returning to the source of his life’s misery has only worked to worsen it. So he keeps turning on his bed, he keeps planning and plotting, he keeps awake until he can’t anymore, until he has run out of ideas, run out of thoughts and his eyes have fallen close.

Still, somehow this night too comes to pass and the sun rises, casting the sky in orange hues, but Sasuke has already been awake for far longer, his body has it ingrained in it to wake before dawn, there is no breaking out of a farmer's routine, even if he has been granted a few more hours to sleep. 

He has already showered and dressed himself for the day and now he's stuck waiting until training starts.

Looking out of the window and up into the sky, he can't help but wonder how the orange light from above hits the clear surface of the river's water. He can't remember it any longer, how did its reflection look? It has to be beautiful, he used to go there every other day as a child. 

And in that moment, without giving it much thought, he decides to visit the river and find the wooden dock he always used to sit on. He opens the only cabinet in his small bedroom and takes out his chokuto, strapping it at his backside. He refuses to even take one step in this village of backstabbers without his weapon.

With the welcome weight of his sword, he starts his journey to the river, relieved to find the streets mostly empty. The farther away he walks from the district, the more he can feel the fresh breeze of dawn against his heated skin, the more he can take in the scent of the meadow with its surrounding trees and shrubs and the few white flowers that adorn the bright grass. 

The scent memory of it all soon leads him to the river of his childhood, a wide and calm body of water that flows in a steady stream. Sasuke walks down from the road to the dock, with his chest tight and constricted and his steps hurried and wavering. 

He sits down at the end of the dock and lets his legs dangle, the soles of his feet touch the cool water beneath, but he doesn’t mind, water always dries. The smooth surface of the river shines with a light orange, shimmering under the sunlight.

As a child, he wanted to throw all his worries into the river and watch the stream carry them away, like the flat stones he used to throw across the water, watching them bounce off the surface. If only it were that easy, but he wouldn’t be here then, would he? When the time comes, he will be the one to wash away the river's blue and paint it red anew. 

Just as Sasuke is about to lean back on his arms, he hears slandering steps from right above him. With his head turned around, he sees a young man strolling down the river’s road, hands buried in his pants as he occasionally kicks against the loose soil of the road, shoulders drawn in and head averted, the stranger seems just as melancholic as him, weighed down by something too heavy to carry. 

The stranger has bright blond and unruly hair that shines beneath the bright sunlight and as the young man finally turns to him, Sasuke is met with a blue as clear as the water of the river at the sun’s zenith. Before he can see more of this man’s face, he pulls a grimace at him and sticks out his tongue, before hurrying down the road. 

Sasuke glares after him, brows furrowed and mouth agape in bewilderment. What kind of behaviour was that? It’s almost embarrassing for a man who seemed his own age to act like such an idiot. However, the longer he thinks about this strange man, the harder it becomes to bite back the amused smile that just wants to force its way to his face. 

He is left confused and can’t help but wonder just who this stranger is. Well, what are even the odds that they will meet again? 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I like my Naruto obnoxious and loud, but with a good heart, just so you know. 
> 
> Also, I am back unexpectedly early, thanks to some truly inspiring episodes I watched.
> 
> Let me know what you think, feedback is food for the soul after all :)

The training site doesn’t have much to offer, it’s simply an open field hidden away from the outside by the surrounding rows of wide and tall trees with branches that hang low enough to fill in the gaps between the trunks. 

Sasuke looks around once again and notes that none of his training partners have arrived yet, so he uses the time left to do his stretches and go through his stances with his chokuto, finding tranquility in the familiar movements now that he’s stuck waiting in this unknown place. He moves across the field, silent and fast, and familiarizes himself with every inch of the training site. 

After he is done and his sword is sheathed, he walks back to the center of the field and settles down on the ground, legs crossed as he leans on them with his elbows, eyes closed to focus on his chakra, feeling it flow through his body like the blood that passes through his veins, ridding him of the slight exhaustion and bringing renewed energy to his limbs. 

Loud steps echo through the field, hapless feet that come down on branches and leaves, no care at all to sneak up on him, to ambush him. Sasuke opens his eyes and stands up from his meditative stance.

“You?” he calls out, feeling the same bewilderment from before rush through him. The shameless stranger from the river is… the Hokage’s son? Sasuke bites back the groan that wants to escape him and feels his face grow pinched with dismay. Of course he is, they have the same blond hair and blue eyes, he was a fool not to notice it sooner. He must have been truly agitated not to draw the connection between these two at first glance. 

The young man slanders over to him and as he slowly approaches him, Sasuke finally has the opportunity to truly take him in. His body is entirely hidden away from view, engulfed by a loose black and orange jumpsuit with a high collar that leaves absolutely everything to one’s imagination. When his eyes move up his body and settle on the ever approaching man’s face, he thinks that this man has something boyish to him, a certain youthfulness and despite Sasuke’s prejudices, it is not the naivety that comes from a sheltered life. What Sasuke sees when he gazes upon him is a child within with needs and wants unmet. He has seen that look in the eyes of other unfortunate souls often enough to recognize it. 

Discarding that notion, Sasuke draws in a deep breath and tastes something sweet in the air. Sweet but with a salty and citrusy tang to it. It tingles against his senses and makes him curious for more. His body can’t help but to react to it with his own alpha scent. Who would have thought that the Hokage’s son is a rare omega? A grin makes its way to his face, now that he has finally received some useful news. 

Sasuke takes the last step until they are within arm’s reach and raises his hand, leaving it invitingly open-palmed in the air as he waits for the omega to return his greeting. 

But instead of taking his hand, the omega swats it away and suddenly moves his head closer and gets up in his face, so close, in fact, that he can feel the omega’s warm breath against his skin. Sasuke instantly draws back, irritated by his daring behaviour. 

“So you are the one who ruined my one on one training with my Sensei?” the omega hisses, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed as he glares at him with an intensity that Sasuke feels is entirely unwarranted. And then… then he just hits him on his shoulder with the tips of his fingers.  _ What the hell? _

“I did not ruin anything, your father assigned him to me. If you want to be mad at someone, he should be your first target. And get out of my face, you moron,” Sasuke bites back, unable to hold himself back. Whatever joy he had first felt when he had found out that this madman is an omega has just completely evaporated. Instead he has found himself a new obstacle. 

“What did you just call me, you bastard?” the omega almost screams at him, face indignant and finger pointing at him accusingly. Naruto is probably not used to people talking back to him, certainly another privilege of being raised as the Hokage’s son. Spoiled little brat, but still, Sasuke has to calm down, he can still use him and win him over, some way or another, no matter how much he will have to suffer for it. 

“What’s your name anyway?” Sasuke asks, hoping to calm the omega down without having to get up his ass. 

“I’m Uzumaki Naruto, you better remember it!”

_ Uzumaki? _ Well, that would explain some of the tension he had thought to see in his eyes. “I think you are the kind of person that is impossible to forget.” After a few seconds of silence pass that they spend simply staring at each other, he adds on, “Don’t you want to know my name?”

The omega purses his full lips and taps his finger against his mouth, giving him a considering look. “That's really not necessary,” Naruto says with a smile and waits a few moments before he continues, “since my father already told me all about you. You’re Shinichi, the rebellious farmer who has come to help us in our fight against our enemies.”

Sasuke simply nods, having nothing else he wants to add. He averts his eyes and takes a few steps away from the omega, turning away from him as he tilts his head up again to gaze into the sky. It’s way past 7 am now. 

“It must have been a hard journey all on your own. The Land of Rice Fields is far away and I have been told that the path to Konoha is one riddled with many hidden dangers. How did you make it? You’re not a ninja, right?” he hears Naruto’s thoughtful voice say from behind him. 

He doesn’t answer at first, he can’t say that he’s one but he also can’t deny the years he has slaved away training himself into a formidable fighter who can stand his own against Konoha-ninjas. The chance to graduate from the academy may have been taken away from him, but he had his own teacher, his own trials and his own missions. He’s strong, stronger than Naruto will ever know, but he knows better than to bloat, showing his cards too early on will only put a dent to his plans. “I survived,” he whispers in the end, eyes fixed on the entrance to the training site, why has Hatake not shown up already?

“I’ll find out soon enough anyway,” Naruto retorts, jumping to his side with crossed arms as he peers at Sasuke’s face, still pouting for some reason. Standing once again so close, the air around him becomes heady with the omega’s scent, sugar, salt and citrus wafting around his nose, forcing him to breathe more shallowly, but he endures, he persists. 

Time passes and soon Sasuke has to actively fight against the urge to return to his guest house, how can a man be this mannerless and disrespectful? Not just a thief, but a rude one at that. That man just wants Sasuke to hate him even more. 

Another hour passes before Hatake decides to grace them with his presence and alongside him comes a young beta woman with short pink hair, fair skin and green eyes. When her gaze falls on him, her eyes widen and he instantly recognizes the expression in them. She reacts to him in exactly the way he had wanted Naruto to react to him, with barely concealed interest and awe. Sasuke almost sighs at the irony. 

"Sakura," Naruto exclaims loudly, jumping up in his joy as he pulls her into a tight embrace. "How long have you been back from your mission?"

"I just arrived and collected Kakashi-Sensei off the streets," she replies once their embrace is over, hitting Hatake on his shoulder. Her eyes keep flickering over to Sasuke as she falls into a lighthearted conversation with Naruto. 

But Sasuke is focused solely on Hatake, he tries to rein in his in their eyes unwarranted animosity and keep it from showing on his face, but it’s not as easy as he would have liked. 

“As much as I hate to interrupt your reunion, it’s time we start our training,” Hatake says, clasping his hands together. Then, for the first time since they have met, Hatake loses his lax composure and instead straightens his back and fixes them with a serious expression. “As you know, we will be preparing not just for a fight, but a battle. Today I will simply evaluate your skill set and find potential for improvement. But first, I think, you should all introduce yourselves, tell your likes and dislikes and so on, we do have a newcomer among us.”

The young woman steps forward and moves her arms behind her back as she leans in towards her Sensei. “I’m Haruno Sakura and I think we’re all a little too old to play this childish game, we will get to know each other well enough, there’s no need to waste time, don’t you agree Kakashi-Sensei? Especially after you’ve made these poor boys wait all morning.”

“But now you’ve ruined my fun,” Hatake replies with a pout and then falls back to his slouching posture and ever present disinterest. “Sakura, you go against Naruto and I’ll take on the newbie and see if the farmer has more to offer than just physical endurance. Show me your taijutsu first.”

Sasuke raises an unimpressed brow at the dig and shakes his head, he’s not that easy to bait, at least not anymore, a few years earlier and Hatake might have been successful. There’s no reason for shame, no reason to want to be something ‘more’, a farmer is someone who provides not just for the family, but for the whole village. They do more good than the Shinobi could ever dream of doing. 

After a deep breath, he stretches his arms and moves to stand in front of the man, positioning himself into a relaxed stance, smiling with eager anticipation. At first, he waits for Hatake to make the first move, but when nothing comes from his side, Sasuke makes a fast jab at his neck that Hatake swiftly counters. 

And just like that they fall into a swirl of movement, one exchange of fists and kicks faster than the last. Where one takes, the other gives, where one falls forward, the other falls back, in just a matter of seconds, they have grown attuned to each other and whenever their eyes meet, Sasuke knows just as Hatake does, that they are both holding themselves back. 

When both of them continue to stand their ground, Hatake suddenly jumps back several feet and, thus, ends their little spar. 

A little bit out of breath and with narrowed eyes, Hatake asks him, “Who trained you?”

Sasuke remains silent at first and catches Naruto and Sakura as they stop their fight and approach, forsaking their training for the chance to hear his story.

“A disgraced warrior, a missing-nin who fought in the Third Shinobi World War and deserted the moment his village demanded he kill civilians. He taught me everything he knew, before death claimed him in his old age,” Sasuke answers with a small smile, just thinking about that old man fills his chest with pride and a grief that neither hurts nor numbs him, and he knows his every word reveals it. It only works to strengthen his cover.

“This missing-nin did a good job,” is all that Hatake says on the matter, gaze oddly fixed and piercing. “Now I know that you can use your fists, but what about your chakra? Did he teach you nin-jutus as well? If yes, what is your elemental affinity?”

“I am best at fire and lightning, why?” 

“I think I might just know what I will teach you,” Hatake replies, the skin around his right eye crinkles as the man begins to smile at him.

Naruto brushes past him as he hurries to Hatake’s side, tugging at his sleeve. “You don’t mean your chidori, right? I begged you for months, it just wouldn’t be fair.”

An exasperated sigh leaves Hatake’s mouth as he shakes his head at the omega’s antics. “How many times do I have to tell you? You don’t have the right affinity and I have something even better planned for you, don’t be so impatient.”

With an angry huff, Naruto crosses his arms and sharply turns his head away from his Sensei. “Fine,” he pouts.

“Why teach me your own jutsu? You know me for what? A day? What do you want in return?” Sasuke implores, staring the man down as he tries to ignore the omega and refrain from showing his own reaction to him. 

“Because I feel like it. It’s not often that I meet someone with the right potential to master my technique and is it not natural to want to pass your abilities on to the next generation?”

“Shinobi don’t like to share their power with outsiders, be careful or your superiors may see it fit to punish you for disclosing village secrets,” Sasuke remarks with a blank expression. 

Naruto stares at him, open-mouthed and wide-eyed and Hatake, he just huffs out a laugh and says, “Oh, I know how to deal with our bureaucrats, no worries.”

Sasuke raises his brows and purses his lips as he nods slowly. “Fine then, teach me your chidori.”

* * *

  
  


After a few days, Sasuke has fallen into a new routine, made up of training and more training, rarely on his own, sometimes with the whole team and mostly alone with Hatake.

A routine is something Sasuke is used to, it makes life easier to bear, easier to handle. Sasuke likes a good routine, what he doesn’t like are interruptions, especially ones that cut through his day and ruin whatever calm and composure he has acquired and composure does not come easily to him, not in this village, but a cool head is necessary to plan ahead and plot, to succeed.

Well, one single message has wrecked it all and now he’s brimming and boiling over with anger and hate, its ferocity burns away the calm and leaves a storm in its place with winds and lightning that are out of his control and volatile enough to even strike him. It’s just too early, way too early, but the Fourth has demanded his audience and you don’t disobey a Kage, if you don’t want to die. 

Sasuke rereads the note again and again and his focus becomes sharp and his sight is tinged red whenever his eyes fall on the same three words,  _ the Konoha Council _ . A circle of ruthless killers, of depraved politicians who wouldn’t shy away from annihilating the rest of the world to protect their precious village and standing in their midst is Danzo, the man who pulls all the strings of the Red ANBU, the Uchiha hunters that Sasuke has run away from all his life and now he’ll come face to face with their leader.

He will have to meet the council in just a few hours, he will have to sit across them and keep his arms and legs relaxed and look them in the face, while everything in him will be itching to kill them, to slaughter them like they did his cousins, his brothers and sisters, his family. He will have to converse with them, he will have to yield to their decisions. Even if it’s all just for an act, Sasuke knows it will kill something in him, he knows that after the meeting has long been done, a part of him will have perished and died, left to rot in that room. That’s the price he’s willing to pay. 

Sasuke takes a deep breath and balls his hands into fists, watching as his knuckles grow white, as his nails bury themselves in his skin. He will have to be perfect and inhumanely careful, Danzo is Konoha’s bloodhound after all, he will sniff out his Uchiha blood from a mile away, he will see his hidden, unused Sharingan and hunger after its powers. 

This meeting will be a matter of life and death, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

  
  


When Sasuke stands in front of the entrance to the Hokage tower, the guards don’t let him inside, instead they make him wait a few minutes, before a woman wearing an ANBU mask signals him to follow after her. The ANBU leads him down a tunnel and makes him walk in utter darkness. 

His heart hammers in his chest and he thinks that the ANBU must hear his erratic pulse beat in the complete silence of these corridors, because he can't hear anything else, the echo of it resonates so strongly, it pulsates through his head, in his ears, on every inch of his body. 

Although he has shorn his hair short, although he wears a farmer's clothes without any sigil to show his heritage, although he has rid himself of everything that could out him as an Uchiha, he still can't shake off the feeling that he's walking to his own execution. Even as a child,  _ especially  _ as a child, he always knew one simple truth, one simple warning. No Uchiha survives Danzo.

He continues down an unknown path, unable to tell how much time has passed or where the hell he is and then a small, but bright flame flickering in the distance makes him sigh with relief, before apprehension takes hold of him and cuts him off his air. 

When they come to stand right in front of the flame, the ANBU makes a few hand signs and the walls begin to shift apart, until a dimly lit and wide room is revealed. Sasuke stands still at first, peering into the room, but he sees nothing, no one at all. The woman to his right tilts her head to the side, her dark eyes shine clear through the slits of her mask. She raises her arm and points inside the dark room. 

The ANBU waits and when Sasuke takes his first step inside, the walls shut close at once, faster than his eyes can see and it makes an awful sound that echoes through this empty space.

“Thank you for coming,” the Fourth greets him, his voice benign and mellow. It still makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. 

Sasuke turns around sharply and after all the darkness, his eyes burn as he stares directly into a bright source of light, not a fire, not a lamp, just pure, translucent light that shines white, painfully artificial. 

When his eyes slowly grow used enough to the brightness, the first thing he sees is an empty chair. Without anyone commanding him to do so, Sasuke sits down on it and raises his head, eyes moving across the circle of village elders, until they finally land on Danzo. 

Wrinkles that run deep into flesh, white bandages that cling to wide planes of skin, an alpha scent so sharp that his nose burns each time he takes a breath and an eye so cold and calculating that a shiver runs down his back.  _ I hope you choke on your own blood, I hope the burden of your misdeeds will crush you to the ground, _ Sasuke wants to spit out,  _ you beast, you monster.  _ “You called me?” he says instead, gaze pointedly directed at the Hokage alone. 

“Yes, yes, I did,” the Fourth replies, shuffling through a stack of paper that sits on the small, round table in their midst. “Thank you for coming on such a short notice. I would have preferred to postpone this meeting to the weekend and to a less, let’s say, dramatic location, but my council members wouldn’t budge. They wanted to see you as soon as possible, hopefully, you can forgive me for your troubles.”

Sasuke nods curtly, but doesn’t react otherwise. 

“We need to be able to trust you as an ally or we won’t tolerate wasting our resources on your training during your stay here,” the elderly woman adds, voice pinched as she stares down at him, head tilted back slightly. 

“How will I be able to gain your trust?” Sasuke asks with a forced smile, returning her stare unabashedly.

“The head of our Yamanaka clan could take a look into your mind,” Danzo proposes, it’s almost a whisper, words spoken in a low voice. 

Sasuke brings his hand to his face and strokes his chin, before pointing the same finger at Danzo. “I won’t do that. You have no right to investigate me, I have committed no crimes nor am I a suspect of any kind.”

“If that’s true, you have no reason to decline,” Danzo begins and lays down his unbandaged hand on the table, brushing something off its surface, and looks him right in the eye. “If you’re truly innocent, then you have nothing to fear.”

Sasuke allows himself to snort and leans forward, hand coming to rest right across from Danzo’s. “That’s not how this works. Just because I’m not a villager, doesn’t mean you get to do anything you want with me. I know my rights and I won’t waive any of them to make your job easier for you. The way I see it, both I and the village will benefit from the deal I’ve made with your dear Hokage or do you think you’ll find a better source than a years old network built by residentials? I don’t think so.”

Danzo narrows his one visible eye at him and his fingers twitch slightly, forming almost a fist before he thinks better of it and stretches his hand.

Sasuke’s eyes follow the line of his body until they fall on his bandaged arm, leaning on the armrest. He bites the inside of his mouth, so strongly, in fact, that he almost tears off his own flesh, but he has to feel something else than sheer, pure disgust and this base, primal fear, whenever he thinks about what lies beneath those bandages. 

He doesn’t know if it’s really true, it could be a legend, a horrific story told to scare off the remaining children, few as they were, of ever returning to this village (to their home). But Sasuke has seen the bodies himself, he still remembers when he was young and still on the run, forced to live as a nomad, he remembers the last of his clan, left to rot on roads of the forest around Konoha. They hadn’t bothered to close the eyelids, he had seen that there was nothing left that he could close the lids over, only black and bloody cavities. Where have those eyes gone, if not into the hands of Konoha ninjas?

“He’s right, Danzo,” the Fourth says. “Kakashi is already supervising him, there’s no need to infringe even more on his privacy. And our visitor seems the bold type, he’s not afraid to speak his mind, I thought you would appreciate such straightforwardness, it’s often your own chosen conduct, is it not?”

Danzo turns his head away from the Hokage and sneers ever so slightly. “We’ll see,” is all he says on the matter and then he completely withdraws from the conversation, if it can be called that, choosing instead to remain the silent observer listening in from the sidelines. 

They talk over a few details, set dates for following meetings and the two other village elders ask him question after question and Sasuke finally has the opportunity to show off how much he has studied his undercover identity. 

Throughout the whole remaining time in that narrow, closed off room somewhere deep under the village, he feels Danzo’s eye on him, penetrating him and trying to see under his skin. It takes every fiber of his will not to shake under that scrutinizing gaze, but still, he feels that fear bury its teeth into his flesh and he wonders how long it will take to unclench its jaw. 

* * *

  
  


The Tower stands several miles away from him, but its shadow weighs hard on his shoulders and the monster, it can still see him, its eyes are everywhere, the Red ANBU’s roots spread into every inch of this village and grow even beyond its borders to nations far away. 

The frightened child in him wants to escape it, it wants to run through the same hidden tunnel that saved his life once before, but Sasuke grabs that fearful child by its neck and strangles it until he has it under control, but he will never kill it, you can't survive without fear. 

And that child that still resides inside him, it takes him back to his beloved river, that small spot in this village, his only source of comfort, the one place he can more than tolerate to be at. 

The wind is strong this late into the evening, it whips around him and brings chaos into the usual steady and calm stream of the river. Its water is a dark, dark blue, impenetrable to the eye, shielded from the rest of the world and in that moment, Sasuke realizes that he wants to be right beneath that shield, sheltered and protected. 

He takes off his robe and pulls his pants down, wearing only his underwear, he walks down the dock and jumps right into that chaos and the moment the water engulfs him, it pulls him deep within and rips him from one side to the other, he gives into the erratic movements of the river, knowing that he is strong enough to free himself, if he so wills. 

Out of a sudden, before he has had his fill, he feels arms wind around his chest. Sasuke rips his eyes open and in his shock, he breathes in the cold water as he slowly begins to lose his hold over his consciousness and soon the world around him grows dark. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To whom could those arms possibly belong?🤔


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished this way later than I planned to, but life is unpredictable like that. 
> 
> To make up for the delay, there is a lot of s/n interaction ;)
> 
> Enjoy and let me know what you think!

When Sasuke regains his consciousness, he wakes up with his body heaving up and arms and legs that begin to spasm as he suffers through vicious attacks of violent, uncontrollable coughing. In his panic, he tries to grab at something and his hands fall on skin, warm and alive under his grip, he clings to it with raw desperation and fights against the rising confusion. Where is he? How did he get here? What happened? Sasuke wildly looks around himself and sees the river to his feet, feels the moist earth and grass beneath him and the memories rush back into him. Someone had packed him from behind and dragged him out of the water. 

He forces himself to calm down then and focuses on his aching throat, his burning lungs, the pain cuts into him and numbs him to his residual panic. In his exhaustion, he tilts his head back and gazes up into a bright and clear blue and feels a little more breathless for it. 

His focus sharpens and the colours swimming above his eyes form a face. “Naruto?” he whispers, it comes out as a croak and aggregates his already sore throat. 

The omega cradles his head in his lap and wipes away the water from his face, his wrist moves right above Sasuke’s nose and the scent is so strong there. It dulls the pain and helps him calm down. If he were anywhere else, he would have closed his eyes and inhaled more and more of it into his lungs. 

But he’s in Konoha and the omega caressing his face is no other than the Hokage’s son, so he grabs Naruto’s hands to pull them away from him and slowly sits up, leaning on both of his arms to hold himself upright. He looks down at himself and sees his bare skin. “Could you bring me my clothes? They have to be here at the dock,” he asks with a rough voice, massaging his throat. 

Naruto nods and darts up before he runs down the dock and quickly returns to his side, throwing his clothes at him once he has knelt down. Sasuke wastes no time in dressing himself and darts a quick look at the omega before putting on his outer robe. Naruto is shivering ever so slightly and the thick fabric of his jumpsuit sags down his body with the great amount of absorbed water. 

“You should let that dry or you’ll catch a cold,” he says, voice stoic as he arches his brows at him. He holds his robe up. “I’ll give you this to change into.”

Naruto averts his eyes and looks to the side, fingers clenching at his jacket. “I would rather not. I don’t get sick anyway.”

“I won’t look,” Sasuke adds, sensing a great discomfort from the omega.

“Alphas always say that, but I won’t risk it, I don’t know you well enough yet.”

“Yet?”

Naruto smiles at him. “Yet.”

“You really shouldn’t have jumped after me. It wasn’t necessary and now you’re needlessly freezing. I was just taking a swim.”

“I could see the fast tide from a distance and you wanted to take a swim? If you want to put your life at risk, you could just challenge me to a fight.” Naruto bows down to him and offers him a hand to help him up, but Sasuke ignores it and stands up on his own. 

Giving the omega an unimpressed look, he starts walking up the dock.

“Hey,” Naruto calls after him. “I saved your life, you owe me a favour!”

Sasuke stops and turns his head to the side to say, “You didn’t. I had everything under control.”

As he takes the next step forward, in a petulant voice, Naruto says, “No, you did not!”

“Yes, I did,” Sasuke hisses, for some unfathomable reason more agitated than he has the right to be.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Fine, how can I return the favour and shut you up?” Sasuke retorts, his exasperation has grown so much in such a short time that he finds it hard to keep himself from running him down to the ground. 

The omega runs up the dock and comes to a staggering halt in front of him, standing within arm’s reach as he makes his demand clear. He smiles at him, blue eyes shining with a mischievous glint. “I hope you have enough money with you.”

“Why?” he asks, eyes narrowed as he regards him with open suspicion. 

Naruto’s smile grows and makes the skin around his eyes wrinkle. “Take me out to dinner.”

Sasuke feels as his eyes widen slightly. “Oh,” he brings out between his lips, flustered and surprised at the omega’s straightforwardness. 

“Not like that, you bastard,” Naruto glares at him, he huffs and adds, “I just want to eat some ramen for free. No need to get all worked up!”

“Of course,” he replies in a low voice. “I’d  _ love  _ to take you out, moron.”

The omega narrows his eyes at him and Sasuke gets the feeling that he is considering an attack against him. In the end, Naruto sighs. “As long as you pay,” he whispers to himself.

Sasuke shakes his head and waits for Naruto to lead the way to his chosen diner. 

* * *

  
  


Their journey to the diner is his first opportunity to spend time with Naruto alone and away from any training field. It affords Sasuke the chance to witness the subtle treatment he has always imagined the villagers would spare those they consider other, an outsider and invader, but it makes no sense at all, because rather than it being directed at him, this disregard is meant for Naruto and Naruto alone. 

But within this contemptuous disregard, there is a sense of fear that shows its face in the distance they keep and cold eyes that follow every movement. There is no worship, no respect or even an ounce of warmth in their gazes.

More than it not making sense, it is completely ludicrous. 

Naruto is the Hokage's heir. The  _ omega  _ son to the hero who saved this village from disaster. How has this disrespect come to exist? Whatever it is, it should have ended with the Fourth’s miraculous return. But even the Hokage’s reach of influence is limited, laws and regulations can only work so far, whatever Naruto has done to arouse the ire of the villagers, it must have been great enough for it to fester in the mind of these simple, ignorant people to persist for so long and against such odds. 

If anything, Sasuke finds it more than curious, it is by far the most interesting thing he has learned of the omega so far and the most useful as well, because even such subtle treatment leaves its scars. Taking advantage of them won’t be too difficult. 

Naruto stops in his tracks and turns to him, raising his arm to point at a small ramen shop at the corner of the street. “Prepare yourself for the best meal of your life, you’ll be graced with the taste of heaven,” the omega exclaims, clasping his hands together and rubbing them in eager excitement. 

“Hm.” Sasuke stares at Naruto, at his easy joy and wonders how much of it is simply affected to ward off the staunch negativity that surrounds him. “Ramen has never been a favourite of mine. Too much salt, too much fat and too little substance.

Naruto simply shrugs, not at all offended, and grabs him by the arm, dragging him to the counter of the shop. “You never ate Ichiraku’s ramen, though.”

The moment they sit down, a friendly looking elderly man wearing a chef’s attire comes to tend to them. “Ah, Naruto, it’s nice to have you back here and I see you’ve once again strung along someone else with you, how many bowls will you wring out of him?”

“As many as I can, you know me,” Naruto replies with a broad smile. “The usual for me, please.”

The man turns to him, waiting for his order. “The same, please,” Sasuke says, eyes still resting on the omega next to him.

Before the food arrives, Naruto already grabs the wooden chopsticks at the counter and breaks them into two, thrumming them against the table as his impatient eyes watch the owner move about in his shop. 

Sasuke turns away from him and instead opts to observe the villagers milling through the busy street. There is an abundance of restaurants and food shops and this late into the evening, people flock to them like flies to a fire. This street lies in the heart of the village, a central point where the youth gathers together after their parties and the old comes to celebrate the end of their work day. Wherever he looks, he sees self indulgence, everything offered here is simply a diversion to the plight of everyday life. 

The only interruption to this scenery of festivity on a Saturday night is Naruto himself. Only his presence cuts through their fog of comfort and bliss and pulls them back to reality, forcing them to be ever conscious of their perceived threat, but just what kind of threat can it be?

As much as Naruto can be an annoying piece of shit, the omega has never shown himself to be overly arrogant or mean spirited, he’s ambitious and kind in his own way. There is nothing to justify the aversion the villagers exude whenever Naruto is in their vicinity, but prejudice never needs reason, does it? It only needs to make you feel better about yourself and this village can never get enough of feeling superior to the rest of the world. 

“Yes,” Naruto calls out and brings his hands down on the counter. The abrupt sound of it pulls Sasuke out of his musings and returns his focus to the omega. 

Their food has finally arrived. Two steaming bowls sit in front of them, the smell of the soup is strong enough to drive off any other lingering scent. Naruto lowers his head to the bowl and takes a deep breath, gaining his first taste through his nose. It doesn’t take long before the omega has finished his first bowl and is halfway through his second, not long at all. 

Sasuke can only stare as Naruto inhales one bowl after the other without bothering to catch his breath and shakes his head, losing more and more of his own appetite. He drinks a little bit of the soup and pushes what’s left to the omega, turning around on his stool to gaze into the night sky. 

He’s been here for more than a week and already he wishes to return to the forests and fields of the Land of Rice Fields. The moon is so far away here, so out of reach and the stars shine so weakly against the light of Konoha. It’s such a shame to look at the sky and see so little. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Naruto says, voice mistful. 

Sasuke smiles to himself, just a quirk of his mouth, and turns to the omega. “Just wait till I show you the sky in Otogakure. You’ll never want to look at this pale imitation again.”

“You must miss your home. Being so far from your family and friends must not be easy.”

Sasuke sighs and keeps silent otherwise. After a while, he says, “There’s something I’ve wanted to know ever since I got here.”

“What is it?” Naruto asks, elbows resting on the counter as he leans back against it.

Sasuke moves towards the omega, until they are almost shoulder to shoulder and whispers with a blank face, “Why not accept your father’s name ‘Namikaze’?”

Naruto pushes him away and stands up from his chair, arms crossed and back turned to him. “I was born when the Fourth was thought to be dead,” he answers in a strained voice. 

“Still, they could have given you his name.”

“It’s better that they didn’t.”

Standing up as well, Sasuke approaches the omega and comes to stand next to him. He peers at his side profile, at the angry line of his lips, his tense jaw and his piercing blue eyes. Realisation dawns on him, a possibility he had not thought of before. 

“Could it perhaps be that you grew up not knowing that the Fourth was your father?”

Naruto hitches on his breath and falls back a little, eyes wide as they fall on him. A derisive snort escapes him. “It’s that obvious, huh? That I wasn’t raised by him?”

Sasuke shrugs. “Not obvious, I just paid attention to the details.”

Naruto steps up to him, getting so close that his scent wafts over Sasuke and dulls his senses to anything else, forcing him to focus on the citrusy honey smell of him alone. The omega crosses his arms and glares at him, once again disregarding any sense of personal space. 

Sasuke decides that it’s only fair to return the favour and takes another step and another one, until he has Naruto pressed against the wall of some building. Now that he has the omega crowded in, he lets his gaze glide over his face, from his bright eyes down to the curve of his plush lips. Looking at the flush that creeps up Naruto’s bewildered face, he arches his brow and regards him with a smug smile. Raising his hand, he grabs the omega’s chin and tilts his head up. “Details are important, after all,” he whispers.

Naruto can only gape at him, eyes growing wider and wider as he tries to catch his breath. He shakes his head and pushes Sasuke off of him, hissing, “Get off me, you bastard!”

Sasuke raises his arms and takes several steps back, more than satisfied with the reaction he has gotten out of the omega. Naruto is anything but unaffected, he must like his alpha scent. More than that, the omega is unused to receiving this kind of attention, flumbering about and flustered as he is. It just makes what he has planned all the easier. 

“Naruto,” a male voice calls out just as Sasuke is about to approach the omega again. It’s so loud it cuts through the incessant noise the many people on this busy street make. 

Naruto brushes past him and hurries to where the voice came from. When Sasuke follows him with his eyes, he sees the intruder in his line of sight, standing in the midst of a group of young people. They seem to be around the same age as Naruto and him, they are probably his academy friends. A diverse bunch of idiotic Konoha ninjas from the look of it.

After a while, with his hands buried in the pockets of his pants, Sasuke slanders over to the group and stops right behind Naruto, standing just to his right. The omega’s only reaction to his returned presence is a slight falter back, before his muscles tense up and the line of his body becomes rigid and unnaturally still. 

Sasuke takes his eyes off the omega and focuses on his friends instead, the only ones he recognizes is an alpha member of the Hyuuga Clan, his pale eyes reveal his identity, and a beta man who resembles the Shinobi who questioned him during that first meeting in the Tower. The rest are complete strangers to him, although some of them may have been in his class all those years ago. Well, children are quick to forget and he has never been someone to mingle with others, he always kept to himself, his family had been more than enough company for him. 

“Are you that Shinichi guy?” the same voice from before says, it comes from a man with red markings on his face and short brown hair, there’s something wolfish about his eyes, they are too narrow, his irises are almost slits. From the repellant scent of him, he is also an alpha, as is the Hyuuga, the rest seems to be betas. 

Sasuke nods curtly. 

“We’ll be having drinks, do you want to tag alone?” he says and adds, “The girls are already waiting for us.”

“I think Shinichi would prefer to spend the rest of the day training, he’s addicted to it,” Naruto answers in his stead, with a strained smile on his face. He doesn’t look over to him even once. 

“Actually,” Sasuke corrects, fixing his narrowed eyes on the omega next to him. “I would like to come along. A little bit of relaxation won’t hurt my training regime.”

* * *

  
  


The air in the bar is stale and warm, heady with smoke and the scents of too many people. None of the coolness of the night has had the chance to enter, its strong winds are barricaded outside. The only way to drown out the discomfort of this place forces him to suffer is to drink more of his alcohol and allow it to dull his senses just a little bit more. 

Still, as much as he would have prefered to actually train than waste his time in this dump of a bar, the benefits of growing closer to the ninjas with whom he’ll be riding into battle outweigh his need for solitude by far. 

He sits between Naruto and Sakura. It’s not the best position to be stuck in, best friends have the tendency to talk with no pause, no matter how insignificant the topic is and being intoxicated with alcohol only makes it that much worse, but at least he has put the round of introductions behind him. 

“Shinichi,” the blond woman across from him drawls as she leans forward to him. Ino, the only other omega of this group. “I’ve heard that Kakashi-Sensei is giving you solo training. Is he treating you well?”

Sasuke nods and raises his glass to his mouth, swallowing his drink down to the last drop. 

“Have you made progress yet?” the Hyuuga asks him, shrouding himself with his ever present stoicism, voice almost as distant and cold as his pale eyes. 

“I would say so,” Sasuke answers and fills his glass again. “I’m a fast learner.”

“And dedicated too,” Sakura chimes in, smiling at him. “You should see him train. He never takes a pause! He’s almost as obsessed as Naruto.”

“I would like to see that,” Neji replies, the corners of his mouth quirk up and there’s anticipation now giving his blank face colour. “Maybe we could spar against each other. What do you say?”

“I would never say no to a fight against such a renomed fighter as yourself, Hyuuga.”

Neji raises his glass towards him and stops in midair, bringing it back to his mouth and drowning its content in one swallow. The rest of the group follows his example.

“You are not academy trained, are you?” Shikamaru asks him. The beta who has exceeded him in his silence. He’s been keeping to himself and quietly nursing at his drink as he observes his surroundings. A laid back kind of person, who only bothers to engage with others when he’s curious about something. 

Sasuke shakes his head and leans back against his seat, putting down his drink now that he has noticed the way the world around him has began to spin. A little pause to calm down and then he’ll continue drinking. 

His head rests against the hard, rough surface of the wall of this rundown bar. Without meaning to, his head turns to the side and his eyes fall on the little skin of Naruto’s nape that shows through his high collar. The omega has been unusually silent ever since they entered the bar, only ever responding when he’s been spoken to, which happened often enough for Sasuke to notice his sudden reclusiveness just now.

Leaning down to Naruto’s ear, he whispers, “Why are you so shy out of a sudden? I have never seen you this calm.”

“Bastard,” he hisses back under his breath and draws away from, fixing him with a glare that only makes him snicker. “It’s your fault!”

“So I’m the one to make you so shy?” Sasuke asks, quietly so that the others can’t hear, and raises a brow at the flustered omega. 

“That’s- That’s not how I meant it! You always turn my words against me.” Naruto pouts at him, lips a shiny red with alcohol. “It’s not fair.”

With a smile, Sasuke leans back into his own seat and lets the rest of the night pass him by, feeling the heightened curiosity of Naruto’s friends prick against his unresponsive skin. 

* * *

  
  


The moment Hatake withered his hangover, he put him through round after round of intense, backbreaking training. Sasuke has never felt each inch of his body as acutely as now, each fiber of his muscles burns with exertion and his chakra has gone beyond the point of simple depletion. It’s a wonder that he’s still able to stand and dodge Hatake’s incessant attacks, the only thing keeping him going is the anger fanning the fire of his will. 

The moment Hatake withered his hangover lies several days back and Sasuke is slowly, but surely reaching a point where he wants nothing but an end to this madness. He’s never been this tempted to use his Sharingan and finish this before it can go on for another day. 

“Enough!” Sasuke screams, grabbing the man by his wrist and pushing him down to the ground. With a quick move, he pulls out a kunai and presses it against Hatake’s throat, cutting through the thin fabric of his collar, so that nothing can separate the cold blade from his skin. 

Kakashi pushes Sasuke off himself with a quick kick to his stomach, propelling him back several feet. Sasuke rolls on the ground to dispel the impact of his landing and buries his kunai in the ground to stop himself from falling off the surface of this narrow rock, now drenched in his sweat and blood. 

Hatake strolls towards him and holds out a hand to him. Sasuke swats it away and stands up on his own, brushing off the dirt from his clothes. 

“I await you back here the moment the sun has vanished from the sky and not a second later. Go home, shower and renew your energy. The next round will be the toughest, but if you succeed, I’ll allow you to reach the next step to master the chidori.”

Sasuke nods curtly and brushes against Hatake’s shoulder as he walks him by, quick to leave, not wanting to give that man the chance to change his mind. 

* * *

  
  


The sky is clouded, not one ray of moonlight shines through its dense walls. It only makes the night that much colder and high up on this mountain, the wind cuts deeper than his skin, forcing his muscles to tense up and making even his bone ache with it. Now that he has had his break, he feels weaker than before. Now he can really feel the true scope of his exhaustion. 

Even if his legs hurt, he doesn’t dare sit down, he has to be prepared for whatever Hatake has planned for him. That man is merciless, but Sasuke can’t deny that this kind of ruthless training suits him more than what they had been doing as a group. It is fast paced and dangerous, not children’s play at all. It reminds him of old Ronin, that man never gave him a break either, no matter how young he still was back then. There had been no need to treat a child who had long lost his childhood to the brutality of the Shinobi world as one anyway. 

Thunder erupts from above and soon the first flash of lightning strikes the earth. With closed eyes, Sasuke feels the power slice through the air and resound in his head, it’s electrifying and forces life back into his tired body. In the midst of this storm, he is one with the world around him, there is no disconnect, he is not in Konoha, but simply here, at this juncture of earth and sky. He breathes with the wind whipping around him and his heart beats in the rhythm of the ceaseless lightning flashing above him. 

“Open your eyes, Shinichi,” Hatake calls out, his deep voice a stark sound that stands out against the thunder. 

Sasuke does as he is told and lowers his gaze from the sky down to the man in front of him. Whatever life the lightning has pushed into him, it leaves him with one painful tug, rendering him breathless, vulnerable to the paralysing shock taking hold of him. 

Right across from him, Hatake’s left eye gleams in a bright red. 

_ The Sharingan. _


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm back with this now that I finally had some time to start writing again and I noticed that people are actually still reading this. 
> 
> I apologize for the long wait. Also, I changed the title. This one just feels better. 
> 
> Anyways, enjoy this new chapter :)

_ The Sharingan. _

A punch to the gut, that’s what it feels like to stare into Hatake’s left eye. He wants to scream and cry and laugh at the irony of it all, but all he can afford to do is to stare blankly ahead, struck still in front of his enemy. He can’t show too much of a reaction to this, he knows he is allowed to be afraid, to be cautious, but he feels not an ounce of fear nor any real drive to hold himself back. 

Still, he drives his nails into the skin of his palms and grits his teeth and forces himself to act his part. 

“So I’m worthy enough for you to pull up the only ace up your sleeve?” Sasuke says with a conceited smile that aches to keep up. “What an honor!”

“It  _ is  _ an honor to carry the Sharingan,” Hatake replies, staring straight into him and his voice sounds far too grave, his words carry too heavy a weight not to take him seriously. 

Sasuke wrinkles his nose and glares at the man, he lets out a derisive snort. “An honor, huh? I wonder how you’ve come to carry such a sought after kekkei genkai.”

Hatake raises his head heavenwards, staring into the stormy night, skin pale and thin under the white light of the many thunderbolts. “It was a parting gift, given to me to protect someone important from danger.”

Sasuke arches a brow and crosses his hands behind his back as he slightly leans over. “A gift, you say?”

Averting his gaze back to Sasuke’s face, Hatake takes a step forward, taking a slow and careful approach. “Yes,” he replies. “I did not steal it, I did not maim anyone to receive it. I would not carry it nor would I use it, if it hadn’t been willingly handed over to me.”

“Hm,” Sasuke breathes out forcefully. “Then you must be one of a kind.”

Hatake shrugs his shoulders. “I think you have swindled yourself enough time distracting me with your needless chatter. You've had more than enough time to prepare yourself. Let's only focus on your training from now on.”

Sasuke nods and raises his arms, moving into a defensive stance and now that the initial shock has passed, he is back in his element. This won’t be his first fight against a Sharingan user, his first opponent had been more powerful than Hatake could ever dream of being, his first opponent had been a fellow Uchiha. The one he had hunted down himself. But it will be the first time he’ll be denied the chance to use his own superior Sharingan. 

Well, there is more to his strength than what his bloodline has offered him. You pick up many tricks travelling through the five Shinobi countries, far more than those rookies he's met have learned locked up in this plain village. 

Hatake is fast, unbelievably, inhumanly fast, as if each movement of his has come forth from the lightning above and it's just as precise, seeking whatever vulnerable place it can find on his body.

Under such an unrelenting onslaught, his chances of gaining the upper hand dwindle down with each new attack. 

Sasuke lets himself fall back, so far that his feet land on the very edge of this rock and wind whistles from hundred metres below. He closes his eyes, fingers moving to form his next jutsu before they settle on the hilt of his chokuto, and then he jumps as high as he can, using his chakra to propel him deep into the raging sky, drawing his weapon out from its sheath as Garuda comes into this universe and saves him from falling back to an early defeat, wings flattering and straining against the strong wind.

His chokuto is no ordinary blade, it had been forged by himself, drenched into its metal are his sweat, his blood, his tears. Week after week, under old Ronin's stern supervision, he has created something so true to himself that it resonates with him the same way his chakra, the very blood in his veins does. It’s his life, his everything. 

He holds it heavenwards and soon it tames the volatile, whimsical storm into his and lightning falls not following the rules of nature, but his commands alone. It falls from the sky and hunts Hatake across the small platform, but it doesn’t take long before Hatake is gone, swallowed up and engulfed by the ground beneath him and therefore untouchable. It leaves Sasuke with no no way to know where he will resurface or when. 

Each attack has its limit and his is time, nature will only bend to his whims for so long before it breaks free from his reins, however, a human can only last so long without air, ninja or not. He can only hope that Hatake’s need for air will force his hand before Sasuke’s attack has run its course. 

The last bolt of lightning strikes the ground of the rock beneath and tears a cleft into its center. He had hoped to reveal Hatake, to rid him of his shield, but all that he has exposed is earth beneath the surface.

Just where is he? Where can he be hiding? Where will he return? And when? He runs his fingers over Garuda’s neck and signals him to fly lower, but only so low that he can still see the wide rock in its entirety. There is no movement below him other than the wind throwing the uprooted earth across the rock’s surface. 

Anger unfurls in the pit of his stomach, fueled by his ever growing impatience. His hand tightens around the hilt of his chokuto, so much that the sharp edges bite into his skin. Sasuke tries to keep his frustration at bay and forces himself to remain concentrated, to hone his focus into a sharp knife. He raises his chokuto, until the blade rests right in front of his eyes, forming a bright, horizontal line against the dark sky. Lightning strikes once more and in that moment, with the flash of light reflecting off his blade, he sees the mirror image of Hatake in it, right behind him. But there was no rush of wind, no rustling, no sound or movement at all before he saw him and now Hatake has managed to get behind his back, with a kunai pressed against his neck, a kunai he only feels moments after he has seen it. 

Sasuke stares into his blade, into the mirror, and feels an impossible calm settle over him. “Your eyes have changed,” he says, voice just as numb. Never before has he seen these eyes on a non-Uchiha, never before, and it makes no sense at all. Hatake should not be able to master the Sharingan to such a high degree, but he has and Sasuke can clearly see the price of using powers foregin to one’s blood. It has sucked more chakra out of the man than it should have. 

“I won this fight, but you succeeded in your last trial,” Hatake replies, a little out of breath. 

Sasuke grabs Hatake’s wrist and moves the weapon away from his neck, before signalling Gerudo to land on the rock beneath them. He jumps off him and pets his neck, bringing their heads together to show his gratitude. In the next moment, his friend is gone and he’s alone with his enemy. 

Hatake grabs him by his shoulder and beckons him a little closer, so that they are facing each other head on. His hitai-ate has already been pulled down over his left eye and beads of sweat run down over what little skin is not covered. There’s something off about him, he seems much less monotone, less disinterested in his surroundings, there’s a gleam of excitement in his eye and being the recipient of this intense stare has Sasuke squirming with discomfort. 

“What?” he snarls, wanting to put an end to this weird atmosphere that has fallen over them. 

“I’m just so immensely grateful that you're the perfect candidate to master my jutsu,” Hatake answers, grinning beneath his cover. 

Sasuke narrows his eyes at him. “Why?”

“Because it means that I’ll be returning to my bed very soon,” Hatake says before tapping him on the shoulder and making his way down the rock to return to their camp. 

* * *

  
  


_ Very soon _ ends up meaning one more week of relentless training, until they can finally pack up and return to their provisional home. The moment Sasuke is done with his shower and all dressed up, he hits the bed and doesn't stand up from it for a whole day. Sleep hasn't been this deep and peaceful for him in years and he welcomes it with wide open arms, thankful for each forgotten, dark moment of sleep.

He wakes up to the sun setting, just in time to watch the colourful play in the sky, the pink, almost purple clouds, the rays of light that shine through them, the sun peeking through the little slits in between them. He watches and watches until the sky grows dark enough for the few stars he had seen with Naruto to reappear. Dissatisfied and disappointed, he stands up from the bed and makes his way to the kitchen, recalling the night sky of his home, on top of the hill right behind the western rice fields. 

With a heavy sigh, he rummages through the drawers, only to find them all but empty. The only thing that looks halfway edible is a bundle of wilted spring onions and it’s only his hunger speaking that has him consider eating it anyway, it seems an appropriate dish for the evening. Shaking his head at himself, he grabs it and throws it into the trash can.

In the end, Sasuke settles for coffee and takes a seat at the kitchen table, right at a small window, but all he can see is just an empty alleyway. He sips at his cup and closes his eyes. For years, he has been patient, thinking, always thinking about the one thing that has made it possible for him to bear his life. It has become a vivid realm in his mind, a mental network that he returns to each night, modifying it again and again and again without ever being able to stop. He’s only at the beginning of his revenge and already he feels overwhelmed. 

A knock echoes through the small house and yanks Sasuke out of his throughs. He puts the cup into the sink and rushes to the front door, almost slamming it open. 

Sasuke takes a step back, brows furrowed in his confusion. “You?”

Before him stands the Fourth, with an amused smile on his lips as he enters. “Yes?” he replies, taking a few more steps inside before turning around to face him. 

“I apologize,” Sasuke says, once the initial shock has passed, “for my lack of manners.” he continues, voice blunt and rough from sleep, before beckoning the Hokage into the kitchen. They sit down on the kitchen table and Sasuke buries his hands in the fabric of his pants, feeling too out of his element to return to his usual composure. 

“It’s all fine.” The Fourth leans forward in his seat and rests his arms on the table. “I came uninvited after all.”

Sasuke raises a brow and remains silent otherwise, waiting for the man to explain himself. 

“I heard of your success. You mastered a very powerful jutsu in very little time. For someone without academy training, such a feat is more than impressive. You even held your own against my student, few of your age manage to keep up with him for as long as you did.”

“So your student has already reported back to you? I’m glad he speaks so highly of me,” Sasuke replies, his mouth feels stiff with the smile he forces himself to fake. 

“No,” the Fourth corrects him. The corners of his mouth quirk up into a small smile and his eyes soften, he looks almost apologetic. “He’s actually out drinking with his friends. We didn’t have the opportunity to speak yet.”

Sasuke’s smile grows even more stiff and he leans back against the back of his chair, one arm on the backrest. “Can’t get anything past you, can we?”

The Fourth’s smile widens. “My council would never let a foreign Shinobi out of their eyes. Be aware that there is always someone tailing after you, all the time, at every place, no matter who you’re with. Someone is always watching your every step. Unfortunately, my hands are bound in this matter. I’m a simple servant for my people, my village.”

“Of course,” Sasuke replies, eyes narrowed slightly, his lips form a tight line. He swallows down the sour taste that has spread in his mouth and clenches his hands beneath the table, where this ‘servant’ can’t see. 

The Fourth stands up from his seat and slowly rounds the table, coming to stand right next to him and for the first time since he has met this man, his alpha scent begins to permeate the room, bitter and overwhelming, crawling up his skin. “You have already gotten to know my son quite well, haven’t you?”

Sasuke begins to smile despite himself, unable to stifle the amusement rising because of the absurdity of this situation. It’s enough to break the instinctive tension at having an alpha challenging him. So, somewhere inside this politician of a ninja, there is a father too. Good, really good to know. “He’s been kind enough to show me around the village.”

The Fourth nods, lips pursed, and settles his hand on his shoulder. His fingers grow tighter around his shoulder, he buries them even deeper into his skin. “Yes, he’s very kind, my son. I wouldn’t want anyone to take advantage of his kindness, you can understand that, can’t you?”

“Well, yes,” Sasuke answers, smiling up at the man. He grabs the hand on his shoulder and takes it off himself. “I understand  _ very well.” _

The Fourth nods, his broad smile still in place, and pats him on the shoulder before he finally withdraws his hand and takes a step back from him. “That’s good, very good." After a long moment of silence, he continues, "Kakashi will give notice once I need your input, I expect you to come to the Tower immediately when he does. Well, I will take my leave now. Have a nice evening.” With these last words, the Fourth vanishes from his view, gone in just one second. That must have been his rumoured inhuman speed.  _ Inhuman, indeed, _ Sasuke thinks, fingers working on his tense temples. 

Sasuke forces his clenched hands open and stretches his fingers out, pressing down against his knees before he abruptly stands up, pushing the chair back a few inches in the interim. He opens the window and airs out the remaining alpha scent that still makes his skin itch with the need to overshadow it with his own, to prove his superiority. It’s base and unwise and plain stupid, but it’s there and he can’t shake it off. He already knew that they were watching him, but to hear it from the Hokage himself with that polished smile of his… it’s infuriating, to say the least. 

With an angry huff, he grabs his outer robe and slings his chokuto over his back before he rushes out of this cursed house, feeling countless eyes follow his every step.

* * *

  
  


The streets are packed full, overcrowded and dense, a constant push and pull that has Sasuke’s already frayed nerves screaming with frustration, so he escapes to some place desolate and shielded, to the forests. Under the cover of a hundred trees, under thousands of leaves, he can finally calm down, even if it’s a miniscule change, it’s better than nothing. 

Sasuke stays away from the few pathways he stumbles onto and walks through the dense thicket, letting his legs carry him wherever they decide to go. With each step deeper into the wilderness, it gets easier for him to breathe and take in the scent of damp moss, the sharpness of the needle covered path to his feet and of softwood. The forest cleans him from his tension through all his senses. It’s a world where time has ceased to exist or at least slowed down enough for him to be able to catch his breath. 

He takes another deep breath then, a sweet hue hangs in the air, faint but there. He comes to a halt and looks around himself, noticing a few colourful shrubs that have managed to grow in between the plain, green thicket. The sweetness of it gets his blood pumping, heat rising in the core of his body. He follows its trails down a path that he had strayed from not even a few minutes ago and stumbles upon a clearing, wide and bright under the moonlight. 

There's a stream running right through its center, narrow and slow, but steady and deep and so impossibly clear even under the dim light of the moon. The sweet scent that has brought him to this quiet, frail place grows stronger, strong enough to recognize, to note its sour, fresh undertone. It is headier than ever before, a soothing lullaby to his frazzled nerves, his chafed skin and an alluring call to his rushing blood, his pounding head. 

Sasuke takes a few steps forward, transfixed but not addled, not drunken. He stands still next to a pile of large rocks that frames a small, leafless tree right at the stream’s edge and turns to face it. Black pants and an orange jacket hang over its branch, moving slightly with the weak breeze. Unable to hold himself back, he leans closer and takes a deep breath, eyes closed. 

When he feels himself almost water at the mouth, he shakes his head and raises his hand to his lips, biting into his skin to get himself back under control. For the first time since he has arrived at this clearing, he dares to let his eyes wander over the stream, seeking the source of this irresistible scent. 

Naruto has his back turned to him, his hair hangs down his nape, wet and darker than usual. His shoulders are barely visible over the water’s surface. Minutes pass but the omega remains silent, completely still under the stream and Sasuke is struck just as still, fighting with himself, unable to decide on his next move. 

He wonders if those eyes are on him now, watching him as he watches their leader’s son bathing right in front of him. It keeps him still, bound at this place by the rocks. He wonders if someone has already been sent to the Fourth to tell him that the one omega under his protection is being ogled by a foreign alpha. He imagines his frustration, his anger to have his warning ignored, his command dismissed on the same day he gave it. It feels vindicte now, to look upon the little skin Naruto has revealed to him, skin that he has always made sure to cover up. 

Vindicte, but wrong, so very wrong, and so he quickly turns around, making a sound to alert the unsuspecting omega to his presence, even if it comes minutes too late. As he waits with his back turned to the water, he expects a shout, a scream, something to give voice to the anger Naruto must surely be feeling now, but nothing like that happens, only the movement of water and the sound of water dripping down to the ground is audible next to the creaking of branches, the chirping of insects and the rustling of small animals rushing through the forest. 

Steps draw nearer to him and out of nowhere, a hand grabs the clothes that hang not even an inch away from him. The omega’s forearm is right over his shoulder, giving off that same enticing scent that has lured him here. His head turns towards it, it’s only a small movement, barely there, but he can’t stop it. This scent is stronger than it should be, but quiet not strong enough to render him senseless. Is this the lingering scent of a heat already gone through? 

The arm disappears again and with it gone, the scent grows weaker, easier to endure and his mind clears bit by bit. Why haven’t they spoken yet? Why won’t Naruto say something? Why won’t Sasuke? It’s ludicrous, unnatural. This silence should not persist for so long. He should not be affected like this, he should not have behaved the way he did. Nothing makes sense anymore. 

The sound of a zipper being pulled up echoes through the clearing and Sasuke finally dares to turn back around and finally face the omega head on. 

Naruto’s hand is still holding the zipper, high on his collar, but he looks at him not with shame, not with embarrassment, but something else, something daring with one of his brows raised and eyes that shine brightly, and a small, lopsided grin on his lips. Sasuke can’t quite tell whether or not he is angry. 

“Had fun, didn’t you?” Naruto says, lowering his hand from his jacket and taking a step forward.

Sasuke arches a brow and keeps his face blank, cold, painfully stiff. 

The omega takes another step towards him then, standing so close now to him that Sasuke can feel his breath on his skin. Naruto tilts his head to the side and stares at him with narrowed eyes. 

Sasuke readies himself for the anger he has been waiting for from the start. He braces himself for the coming attack. 

With his eyes a bright, clear blue, Naruto says to him, “So, now that your training is finally over, can you show me your chidori?”, and the tension he’s been building up leaves him like a whiplash. 

Sasuke can’t help but shake his head in amusement. This omega sure knows how to take him by surprise. 

“Of course.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, I really churned out over 4,5 k words for this one, what a week. I guess the plot is thickening. 
> 
> Have fun and thanks for the lovely feedback :)

The blistering of the chidori is loud in the dead of the night and it lights up the otherwise dark clearing, reflecting off of the blue of the stream's water and Naruto's eyes that stare at him all wide eyed and bright. He looks right into the center of Sasuke's hand and the wonder and awe is so clearly visible on his face, Sasuke doesn't know how to react, he just feels flustered for some reason. 

Naruto shuffles even closer, lowering his head before raising it again and proclaiming, with disbelief swinging in his voice, “That’s so cool!”

“Hm,” Sasuke brings forth, quickly extinguishing his chidori, and backtracks. “What else did you expect?”

The omega crosses his arms and purses his lips, his awestruck face morphing into a heated glare. “Don’t get all arrogant on me,” he hisses. “What are you doing here anyway? Did you follow me? Wanted to sneak a peek, didn’t you? All that time away from me must have put you in a bad mood.”

With one swift, but light move, he hits the back of Naruto’s back, heat rising to his face. “Who’s being arrogant now, huh? As if I came here for you, I was just taking a walk,” he says, voice growing calm and nonchalant as he carries on, before he turns around, walking off right away without throwing even one look back. “If anything, your reckless behaviour puts me in a bad mood. Who takes a bath in a forest at night?”

“Hey!” Naruto shouts after him and his steps soon sound through the forest as he tries to catch up to him. “Wait for me!”

Without giving it much thought, Sasuke slows down and allows for the omega to return to his side. 

“I just wanted some fresh air after being locked up for days on end,” Naruto mumbles, a pout still on his lips as he kicks against the ground beneath. “I just… wanted out of that house. God, I was going crazy from boredom!”

Sasuke regards him quietly and raises his brow before nodding and continuing down a paved road, heedless of its destination. His gaze keeps drifting off the road to Naruto’s mellow, doleful face, to his downcast eyes down to his bottom lip jutting out and lower to his tightly balled hands. Sasuke wants to ask him why, to demand all the information he can get out of him, but he remains silent and simply keeps the omega company. It’s so apparent that he’s going through some problems at home with his father, but who is he to intervene? It’s not like he knows the first thing about resolving familial conflicts to give advice. Better to leave it alone and make Naruto want to talk out of his own volition. It’s safer that way, better too, if he wants to gain the omega’s trust. 

But Naruto is quiet too, withdrawn into himself, to some place Sasuke can’t reach. How far into the past is he looking right now? Is it just the past few days weighing down on him? Or is he looking farther away, into some darker place, deep into his memories? 

And so they walk side by side and they don’t bother to look at each other anymore. They just walk ahead, setting one foot after the other forward without paying any attention to where they’re headed to. After a while, Naruto outpaces him, letting his head hang low, but his steps land heavy on the earth, leaving a vivid trail behind, and then he suddenly stops dead in his tracks, lifting his arm to point his finger at something Sasuke can’t yet see. 

“What is that?” Naruto asks. 

Sasuke hurries over to him and grabs him by the shoulder, hauling him back a few inches. His eyes glide along his raised arm and follow the line of his pointed finger to a tall wall that’s clearly been broken off. Dark, black grime covers it, some form of soot, perhaps. Sasuke stumbles forward then, hands already moving to touch its rough surface, his fingers glide down and he raises it to his eyes, looking at the black stains on his fingertips. He takes another step closer and slowly wipes away the grime. His eyes widen and his heart begins to thumb like mad in his chest, beating against his rib cage. He can only barely bite back the chocked up sound that wants to escape his throat, but he manages it somehow and widens his shoulders, shielding the wall from Naruto’s eyes as he wipes the grime back over the place he had laid bare. 

“Shinichi?”

He turns around and walks the other way. “I’m really fucking tired, let’s get out of this forest, okay?” His hands keep shaking, so much that he can’t force it to stop, so he buries them deep in his pockets and moves to straighten his back. “Come on!” he calls out, beckoning the omega to follow behind him. 

Sasuke allows himself to close his eyes for a moment, to recall what he has seen just once. His hands shake not because he is afraid, but because he wants to touch along the indentions of the fan he had brought to the surface, to touch it once, just once. His clan’s sigil… how long has it been since he has last seen it? He used to wear it on his back, his cousins did too and his uncles, his aunts, his father, his mother and his brother, they all used to wear it on their back and wherever they went, everyone would always know who they were, who they belonged to, that had a home they shared with their whole family and they were always so proud, so very proud. Now there is no one left to carry it, no one who would survive it.

Before he hears it, before he sees it, he feels the flood that is building in the back of his mind, he has to stop it before it can drown him, before it can wreak him, because it will, but not now, not here. He has to control himself, just hold himself back until he’s back in that house, in that foreign bed. Until then, he has to forget, to pretend and stay here, in the present, with Naruto next to him. 

And somehow, he succeeds, he is silent with Naruto at his side, keeping him company, keeping him hostage, but he doesn’t falter, doesn’t give voice to his inner turmoil, to the storm raging inside of him. No, he doesn’t show any of it, he has to survive this first and he does survive, he always does. 

* * *

  
  


Back at the house, Sasuke has locked himself into his room, sitting down on the ground with his back to his bed’s frame, head held between his knees, rocking back and forth. He can’t close his eyes, he doesn’t dare to, afraid of all the horrible things he will see, if he does. 

He grabs for his sheathed chokuto and holds it close to himself, pressing his sweaty, hot forehead against its cold hilt, trying to hold back the memories of his past, but they are waiting for him, standing at the threshold to his mind, banging fist after fist against the door, again and again until his ears begin to ring, until he feels overwhelmed and half crazed. 

Sasuke lets go of the blade and stands up, he has to move, to do something or he will go mad under all this pressure. He rushes into the kitchen and brews himself a quick cup of coffee, moving through the motions without really being there at all. He stares down at it and minutes pass without him taking even one little sip.

“Hm, is there enough left for me?” Hatake’s voice sounds from his right and pulls him back to the present.

Sasuke slowly turns his head to him and looks him dead in the eye. "No," he says and his voice sounds far away, foreign. He takes his cup and drowns it down in one swallow, ignoring the flare of pain as the still warm coffee burns its way through his throat.

"Too bad," Hatake responds, leaning against the door frame and effectively blocking his way out of this room.

Sasuke's lip twitches and his eyes zoom in on Hatake. He takes a deep breath as his muscles start to tense up. Why won't he just get out of the fucking way? Why won't this asshole just leave him the fuck alone? 

"Couldn't sleep, huh?" Hatake asks, fixing an unimpressed look at him. He raises a finger to his chin and continues, ignorant or perhaps just uncaring of his rising ire. "Well, it is full moon after all, I heard some people have trouble falling asleep when it's still so bright."

"Is that so?" Sasuke says, words cold and biting. "I didn't even notice. I just wanted a drink and now that I had one, I'll be returning to my bedroom." He approaches Hatake and stands still, waiting for him to finally move away from the threshold.

Hatake doesn't move an inch. He's just looking at him with that cool, half casted expression of his. "What got you so agitated?"

Sasuke looks sideways and grits his teeth. This goddamn Konoha dog. "Bad dream, bad sleep."

"Oh, really?"

"Really," Sasuke says and gives the man a tight lipped smile. 

"Are you perhaps missing your home? Long missions like yours are sometimes hard to bear."

"I guess," he replies, words and eyes evasive. "Nothing is quite like home, right?"

"Right," Hatake says and finally moves away from the door frame, tapping him on the shoulder. "Good night, then." And he is gone, but not without giving a nice little parting gift, he has made him angry.

Sasuke clings to that anger and lets the frustration rise higher and higher in him, kindling the flames of this budding fury to burn out any recess fear, any leftover pain. This is peace for him, this is his only comfort, this warm, numbing blanket of hatred and he wraps it tightly around himself, unwilling to let go.

* * *

In the following days, Sasuke distracts himself with his next round of training, focusing on strengthening his physical condition. He needs to feel the burn of his muscles, the relentless exertion, the bone deep exhaustion that follows to keep his mind on his only objective, his plan. After his own round is finished, he joins Hatake and his students engaging in what he can only consider play fighting, as tight as the rules are. No lethal attacks, no nin-jutsus above a certain level, no foul tricks. A fight so artificial that it gets Sasuke itching for a real fight for a change, especially when he’s up against Naruto, he’s got quite a few more tricks up his sleeve than Sasuke had first thought, but the omega still has a long way to go before he can be anywhere his level, but the same goes for Sakura, there is some unexpected strength to her. When one of her hits land, he feels it hours later still. It’s better than he could have ever hoped for. 

And so he trains each day until the sky grows dark and follows Hatake’s students to a diner or some restaurant, where he mostly eats in silence while listening to the never ending conversation between this pair of close friends. Everytime he can’t help but notice how different Naruto acts when he’s with others, his smile seems wider, he’s louder and most importantly, he talks differently, keeping the little things that made Sasuke wary of his home life to himself. It’s quite bizarre to say the least. 

But tonight, after he has grown so restless and agitated that he can barely keep his act together, the sky has become pitch black and after having parted ways from the group, using some flimsy excuse, he sneaks out of the house and prowls through the night, keeping to narrow, shadowed alleyways to make his way into the forest while remaining unnoticed by the many eyes set on him. 

He returns to that broken, rotting wall, to the ruins of his family, of his entire people, cleaning the grime off it once more, and he allows himself to remember the explosions that rocked the ground beneath his small body, the fire that burned the soles of his little feet as he ran towards that narrow, crumbling tunnel, the incessant screams from all around, the shrieking wails that echoed as one Uchiha after the other fell to the ground, the neverending stream of blood that followed him to the Land of Rice Fields, he remembers as much as he can right at that moment, but it’s not enough, it’s cowardly how little he can bear to see. 

Hot, painful tears well at his eyes and glide down his face, he tastes the salt of it in his mouth as the first sob breaks forth from him. He shuts his eyes close then, as tightly as he can and raises his arm to his mouth, biting down on the skin of his forearm to drown out all the noises falling out of him. 

When the worst has passed and only silent tears stream down his face, he tilts his head heavenwards, eyes still on the sigil of his clan. With gritted teeth, he covers his family under dirt, gaze now unfocused, distant. 

Only a hundred meters farther and he would return to place of his origin, but it's been uprooted, destroyed and he is not allowed to go there anymore. No Uchiha is. It's a death sentence, just like the true nature of his eyes is, like the blood in his veins. He's been doomed to death for years. 

* * *

  
  


“Shinichi!” Sakura calls out, rushing to his side of the training field, beads of sweat gliding down her forehead, she’s breathing harshly, holding a small scroll in her hand. She hands it over to him and he takes it after hesitating for a second. 

“What is this?” he asks, his finger slithers across the scroll’s edge and he tries to get his nail under the thick, aged paper, but the scroll won't budge even a little, it stays tightly sealed. “What am I supposed to do with this? I can’t even open it.”

Sakura gives him a small, secretive smile, crossing her arms behind her back. “I’m not allowed to tell.”

Sasuke sighs, rolling his eyes and dangles the scroll in front of her eyes. “Is this yours? If yes, maybe you should look after it then, a battle is on the horizon, I don’t have half the mind to take care of this on top of that.”

Sakura’s smile slowly leaves her face and she straightens her back, raising her head to level a fierce stare at him. “This is not about a personal matter. Believe me,” she replies, steadfast and hard as stone. She lowers his arm and presses the scroll back into the palm of his hand, closing his fingers over it. “You know, you’ve been kind of restless the last few days and you don’t even come to eat with us anymore. I know that we don’t know each other well, but you can still talk to me. Your behaviour just isn’t good for the team, you know?”

Sasuke gives an abrasive snort and takes his hand out of her grip, packing the scroll deep into the pocket of his pants. “I’ll keep that in mind, Haruno.”

Sakura shakes her head. “Well, as long as you do that, we’ll have no problems with each other.”

Sasuke nods and turns away from her, more than done with this conversation. He came here to train and now she’s wasting his time with this child play. 

“Oh, Shinichi, there’s one more thing before I leave you to your training.”

“What is it?” he asks, voice tight with his annoyance, his back still turned towards her. He leans down to his knees, rummaging through his bag for a few kunai. 

“Don’t tell Naruto.”

Sasuke stops in his tracks and turns his head to the side, looking back at Sakura with furrowed brows. “Tell him what exactly?”

Sakura smiles again, small and secretive, and shrugs her shoulders, her gaze wanders across the training field, stopping once they land on Naruto. 

Sasuke follows her gaze and finds Naruto deeply engrossed in his fight against two of his Shadow clones, he can’t pinpoint the real one out them. There is just a flurry of movement, they move incredibly fast and have no eyes for anything except their opponents. It bothers him for some reason, that he can’t tell who’s the real Naruto, but that thought is quickly discarded once he recalls Sakura’s words. 

He turns back to her and gives her an incredulous look. She returns his stare, but she doesn’t say anything, opting instead to prolong this weird, uncomfortable silence between them. Then her eyes widen and she begins to smile, waving her arms.

“Kakashi-Sensei! You’re finally here and you’re just half an hour too late, to what do we owe the honor?”

“I came to pick up Shinichi,” Hatake answers, turning to address him. “Come along, we don’t have much time.”

Sasuke quickly grabs his bag and packs his weapons into it, slinging it over his back, more than ready to leave Sakura behind. “Where are we going?”

“To the Tower. Minato-Sensei wants to see you.”

“Why?” Is this about what happened in that forest? But so many days have gone by without a single notice from the Fourth, so why should he want to say something now? It makes no sense.

“You will find out soon enough,” Hatake says, evading his question. 

Sasuke watches him as he exchanges a meaningful look with Sakura, signaling her something that he is not privy to. Something is going on, something neither he or Naruto are supposed to know. 

“Sakura, you look after Naruto, understood? Make sure he eats something healthy for once, will you?”

“Of course,” she says, nodding, and turns to him. “Good luck to you.”

Sasuke doesn’t grace her comment with an answer and takes one last glance at Naruto. There are no Shadow clones anymore to deceive him. Just Naruto, lying on the green grass, breathing harshly, chest moving up and down as he tries to catch his breath. Sasuke stares, transfixed, but tears his eyes away in the end. “Let’s go then,” he says to Hatake, hand on his stiff neck. 

Why are they keeping Naruto out of this?

* * *

  
  


The office of the Fourth is as full as he recalls it from that time he had first come back to this village. They surround him once more and he sits in their midst, facing their leader. It seems to him that they are already inching closer to him, shuffling together to sink their teeth in his bare throat, as if he would ever allow himself to become their prey again. 

“You called for me and I came,” Sasuke says, leaning back against the backrest of his chair, arms loosely crossed over his chest. “So what can I do for you?”

There’s a young woman next to the Fourth, leaning against the windowsill, one he hasn’t seen before, with fair hair and a rhombic shape on her forehead. Her brown eyes are narrow and cold as they stare into him, as if she finds his existence more than distasteful or perhaps it’s his attitude that has caused her scorn. But what truly makes her fascinating to him is her commanding presence in this room filled with high ranking Shinobi and politicians. Everyone looks to her, they wait for her reaction as if she is the one to give commands and not the man sitting in front of her, in the chair of the Hokage. 

“We have important matters to discuss,” the Fourth answers, one hand on the mound of papers on his desk while the other holds tightly to a pen. 

Sasuke focuses back on the woman instead and finds his gaze returned. She raises her brow at him and lifts her chin, as if to order him to speak. 

“What matters?” His reply comes delayed and everyone in the room notices. He receives disapproving glances from all around him, but he doesn’t care. There must be a reason this woman has come for this meeting, but he knows absolutely nothing about her. Despite her young appearance, she gives off no scent, as if she has reached the age where your scent glands stop producing it, and her eyes… they look wrong on her unblemished face. He has to find out more about her, but right now he doesn't even have a name and no way to ask for it without raising suspicions.

“We want you to return to Otogakure,” the Fourth reveals and a small, pleased smile settles on his lips. 

Sasuke shoots up from his seat and takes a step towards the Fourth, hands on the desk as he leans forward. “Why?” he presses out, jaw clenched. A hand grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him back to his chair. He turns around sharply and sees Hatake. With an angry huff, he settles back into the chair. 

“We’ve been in contact with the spy you gave us information about, but the last update from her is over a week old. I need something that’s a little more recent, but we can’t reach her. She seems to be lost or unwilling to cooperate with us. Find out the problem, solve it and bring us some useful information. That was part of the deal you made, right?”

Sasuke lowers his head and swallows against the building lump in his throat. This was not supposed to happen, Karin was not supposed to stop reporting back to Konoha. Something must have happened. Who knows what Orochimaru and his henchmen have been up to, while he was stuck here, training day in and day out. Oh, god, he has truly been so preoccupied with his own issues that he hasn’t noticed anything off. 

“Fine, I’ll go. Right now, if you let me.” He can’t quite keep the worry from his voice, but at least it washes away the tension of the Fourth’s face and leaves something similar to sympathy instead. 

“You’ll go tomorrow, at dawn and you won’t go on your own, boy,” the unknown woman says, pushing herself off the windowsill to walk around the table and come to halt right next to him. She looks down at him without averting her head in the slightest. “Understood?”

Sasuke balls his hands into fists, only to force them open in the next second. He glares up at her. “Who will come with me?”

“Me of course,” Hatake chimes in, laying his hand on his shoulder. “You’re stuck with me till the end.”

“And Sakura,” the woman adds, eyes resting on Hatake instead of him. 

“And Sakura,” Hatake repeats. 

Taking a deep breath to force some calm back into himself, Sasuke looks past the Fourth out of the window. The sky is clear today, not one single cloud is visible, just this bright, saturated indigo blue. “What about Naruto?”

The Fourth stands up from his seat in one abrupt movement that rocks his heavy chair. He dusts off his robe, hands moving slowly over the white fabric, and his scent grows sour, bitter. “It’s better he stays in Konoha.”

Sasuke can’t help but snort. Is this man serious? “He won’t like that.”

“Well, that doesn’t concern you, does it?”

“I guess not.” Anger flares up in him, hot and white, but its cause seems too little to warrant such a strong reaction. “Am I dismissed?”

“Yes.” The Fourth turns his back to him, arms crossed behind his back, and he has such a dignified pose as he continues. “You’ll meet Kakashi and Sakura at the eastern gate and not one word to Naruto.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, so earnest that everyone in the room knows it to be mocking instead and with these last words, he turns around on his heels and moves to leave the office, feeling disgruntled, confused and mostly frustrated. 

_ The eastern gate, _ he thinks once he has reached the threshold, his hand lands on the door frame and he keeps it there for a short moment. Out of all the available gates, why does it have to be this one?

He knows the reason, it’s the direction they will have to take to reach Otokagure as fast as possible, but still. It’s just so close to… Sasuke shakes his head, forcing that thought down, and rushes through the hallways, wanting out of this stuffed Tower. 

* * *

  
  


Now that summer is quickly approaching its end, the morning mist has returned and with the night’s rain comes the scent of dust, heavy in this abandoned part of the village. Wheezing sounds echo through the empty alleyways, accompanied by the occasional ringing of bells set in motion by the strong wind. The few houses that remain whole stand empty, but their walls are already beginning to collapse, the colors are faded out, washed away by the many years gone by.

All around him, it smells of decay, rang and pungent with a faint tinge of sickening sweetness. Something has been slowly rotting here, something that was once alive and flourishing has been broken down to ashes that cover every inch of these narrow streets and the stubborn weeds that snake through the cobblestones, they grow from earth seeped through and nourished by the blood of many. 

Sasuke wants to rip them out and leave not even one root behind. Oh, he knows that he shouldn’t have come here, but when else will he get this chance? To come here without risking his cover, without confessing to his true identity, when else but this morning? 

He had known the moment the Fourth had mentioned the eastern gate that he would come here, he had known that he would fall victim to this temptation and he has, he is here, isn’t here? 

Because between the eastern gate and the village, there lies a district. The district of a once noble clan, the source of envy and reverence alike in a bygone era, feared, but needed. Strong, but with an exploitable weakness. 

After more than a decade has passed, Sasuke has returned home, only to find nothing left. No one is here to welcome him back home, no one is here to call him by his name. There are no children running through the streets, playing a game of hide and seek, no aunts or uncles inviting him over to dinner to play with his cousins. No mother to soothe his fears, no father to rely on, no brother to ask for help. No one at all. 

No, there is nothing left, nothing but ashes and dust, nothing but the lingering scent of death choking him with every step he takes forward. 

But, oh, god, he still remembers how these abandoned streets looked before. He remembers the vivid colours of the many buildings, the smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the air, the countless sounds falling from a never ending stream of people milling through the main street. He remembers walking down these streets everyday after his classes had finished, rushing home to find his brother and beg him to finally train with him. He remembers his mother’s following appeasements, her comforting words and his father’s quiet, but steady presence and this constant need to finally impress him the way his brother had done everyday.

And he remembers the day it was all burned to the ground. Every single moment of that horrible day, every damn moment is burned into his retina. 

The Sharingan never forgets. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really struggled with this chapter for some reason, but I'm glad I got it finished before the new year. 
> 
> May 2021 at least not be worse than 2020. 
> 
> Anways, enjoy this chapter (with a little flashback of Sasuke's past) and let me know what you think!

Sasuke leaves the district behind, but something remains there as he steps through the narrow exit. The same thing he lost all those years ago when he had first fled from his home, but the time to get it back will come, he will make sure of it. Now he simply has to move forward and spare not one glance back.

Once he’s outside the district, he allows himself five minutes to calm down. Five minutes and not a second longer to calm his racing heart, to stop his thoughts from running in vicious circles that will only plunge him into a dark abyss and to cleanse his face of the horror that must be etched into his skin. He does it through a prayer, kneeling on one leg with his chokuto laid flat across his knee, one hand on the hilt and the other wound around the blade. Just the way his old Master had taught him after he had witnessed one of his ‘episodes’. He prays to gods he doesn’t believe in, but he believes in himself and in Ronin’s teachings, it’s the closest thing to faith that he has. 

With this faith in mind, Sasuke stands up from his kneeling position and sheathes his chokuto, before he starts walking towards the eastern gate. Only its silhouette is visible from this distance, but it soon becomes clearer the longer he walks through the fog. 

Hatake and Sakura already wait for him at the gate and he’s so taken back by the fact that Hatake has actually managed to be on time that he stands flabbergasted. Sakura only snickers at his surprised state before she turns away from him to face the road leading outside of Konohagakure. 

Unable to hold the question back, Sasuke walks up to Hatake and asks him, “Why are you already here?”

Hatake shrugs his shoulders. “I guess I’m just anxious to visit your home and finally find out more about our favourite foreigner.”

Sasuke scowls at him and drives his hands into his pockets. Out of the group, he is the first one to step outside of Konoha and he’s probably the only one rejoicing on the inside, but the relief and joy are short lived for he knows that the reason for this trip lies in the shadows. Either Karin is truly in danger or there is another reason that she withdrew from her role as the double agent. He has to make sure that they will be using the shortest route to Otokagure, he cannot afford to waste anymore time. 

“I have a favour to ask of you two,” Sasuke starts, waiting until he has Hatake’s and Sakura’s full attention on him. “Our time is limited. The sooner we reach Otokahure, the higher our chances are to find out where the problem in our communication lies. Please let me lead the way, I know a route that is not only short, but one that also avoids most hot spots for raiders, missing nins and the like.”

Sakura looks to Hatake, waiting for his decision. He nods back at her and she turns to Sasuke. “Fine, let’s do it your way. After all, you have the most to lose.”

Sasuke raises a brow at her presumptuous claim and nods curtly, moving ahead of the two, eyes on the road ahead. 

The muscles of his neck tense up and he feels a tingling sensation run up his skin, but he still faces forward, refusing to look back. There’s no need for that after all, that weak, scared child still shows him all the things he doesn’t want to see anyway. 

* * *

  
  


_ Heaven is burning and for the first time in his life, it’s not rain that drops down from the sky, but paper bombs, kunai and blood. It’s also the first time that the ground beneath him shakes so much. He’s heard of earthquakes before, of course, it’s after all quite common in the Fire Nation, but, he thinks, this must be something else. It’s never been this loud here either, it’s so loud, in fact, that he can’t hear anything at all. Can something be so loud that it’s silent again? Sasuke isn’t so sure about that. Nothing makes sense anymore, he’s just so confused. All he knows is that he is afraid and that he wants to go home to his mother and ask her all these questions that he can’t answer himself, but he can’t move, can’t scream either, he’s just still as a stone and as useless as one as well. And his eyes, they hurt so much, it burns and burns and he sees the world around him in such lucid details that the world has become merciless. _

_ It's only when a hand grabs him by the shoulder that he freezes even more before he starts to shake as vehemently as the ground beneath him. Someone turns him around and when he finally manages to tilt his head up, he comes face to face with his brother.  _

_ "Nii-san!" he cries out as he jumps into his arms, clinging to his brother's shirt as if he's hanging off a cliff. "Nii-san, why is it so loud here? What's happening?" _

_ Itachi strokes his hand over his hair and pulls Sasuke off himself. He kneels down and takes Sasuke's face in both of his hands, staring straight into his eyes with a strange, removed expression on his face that Sasule has only seen a few times before. "Sasuke, you will listen to me and do exactly as I say, do you understand?" Itachi says, his grip on his face becomes stronger. It starts to hurt him. _

_ Sasuke grabs his brother's hands and tries to peel them off his face.  _

_ "Do you understand?" Itachi repeats and pulls him closer to himself. _

_ Sasuke nods numbly, face wet with tears or blood, he doesn't know which, maybe it's both.  _

_ "Follow me," Itachi commands and stands up, finally letting go of his face. _

_ Sasuke rubs the places his brother's finger had buried themselves and grabs for his brother's hand as they begin to navigate through streets that had been reduced to rubble.  _

_ Alongside them, people are crying out for help, for mercy and children are wailing for their mothers, but no one answers to them, no one who will help them at least and soon the last words fall from their mouths and one after the other hits the ground, where they lie still as a stone and perhaps as cold as one.  _

_ Sasuke tears his eyes away from the sidelines and stares only at his brother's back, terrified to see anything else but the red-white emblem on his brother's shirt. _

_ Itachi comes to an abrupt halt and propels him forward, hand once again wound tightly around his shoulder. He crouches down and points his finger somewhere behind Sasuke. “You will run there, as fast as you can, and you will go through the tunnel in the wall and you will not stop running, not even when you can’t get any air anymore. No matter what, my dear brother, run, even if you have to run your entire life, it’s the only way you’ll survive.” He turns Sasuke around by his shoulders and shows him the place he’ll have to reach.  _

_ “Nii-san-” he says, but Itachi doesn’t let him talk and pushes him forward, shouting a single word back at him before he is gone. Run.  _

_ And that’s what he does, he runs and runs until he reaches the tunnel his brother had mentioned, and he crawls through it, as another earthquake seems to shake the ground beneath him, causing the concrete of the tunnel to rupture and crumble down on his back. He doesn’t know how long he spent in that tunnel, surrounded by utter darkness and the threat of being crushed to death by the wall above him, it could have been years, hours or minutes, but it felt like eternity to him until he finally made it out of that hellhole.  _

_ And now an endless forest spreads in front of him, trees towering miles into the sky and Sasuke feels so small in that moment, so insifingant, as useless as an ant that has been separated from its colony, now left wandering through the world without any other meaning to its life than that of a prey.  _

_ Still, his brother had told him to run, so he’ll do just that. He’ll run until he too dies, maybe it will happen somewhere inside that forest.  _

* * *

  
  


_ He’s hungry and he’s cold too, he’s been eating worms, rabbits if he's lucky enough to catch one and when he dares to venture out of the forest’s canopy into a clearing, he even eats the occasional fish, but a day has passed and he’s been running the whole time, too afraid to slow down and get himself something to eat.  _

_ How long has he been out in the wilderness? He doesn’t know, can’t tell the time and maybe it’s better this way, it’s like a dream, where you can’t tell apart between past and future, there’s just the now and maybe, if he’s lucky enough, he’ll wake up in his own room, where he is sheltered and he can smell his mother’s scent wafting through the hallways, calming him down and allowing his sleep to be deeper and painless and warm and loved. His father will be there too, watching over him, distanced but there, in the end, always there. He doesn’t know about his brother, though, he’s always missing from home these past few months, at most, he will catch a glimpse of him and he’ll be gone the next second, but maybe this morning will be special and he’ll finally stay home, right there with him, and talk to him and play with him and truly see him, just this once.  _

_ But he isn’t waking up, no matter how hard he pinches himself, no matter how much pain he is in. He’s always been someone who wakes up before the worst can happen in a cruel dream, but this nightmare seems inescapable, as endless as this forest with its dark shadows, its disturbing noises, its dreadful traps.  _

_ The worst of it all, he simply doesn't understand why he has to be out here on his own? Where is his family? Why hasn't his brother caught up to him already? And why can't he go home? Why does he always have to run?  _

_ He doesn't want to run anymore, he doesn't want to eat all this horrible stuff he doesn't want to be all alone. _

_ Why? Just why can't he go back anymore? _

* * *

_ The answer comes to him when he's grown thin and his skin is crusted, muddied and more and more inhuman. Much time has passed, Sasuke knows this now because he's no outsider, no invader of this forest any longer but a living, breathing part of it that moves with the leaves rustling in the wind, hunts with the predators hiding in the thicket and sleeps with the herd. _

_ Who is he? Where does he come from? Why does he even live? Such questions come to him from time to time and he has no answers. But shouldn't he know? He still has his name, he still has his memories, but they are so far away now and matter so little here, where only survival counts. The next meal, the next shelter, the next destination and nothing else. That's his life now. _

_ One day, something in him snaps and the tension these questions cause him becomes so unbearable, he searches for his own reflection and finds it on a small river's surface and what he sees must not be human, but some feral little animal. Those frightened, dead little eyes cannot possibly belong to a person. _

_ And he finally understands. His brother won't return to him and he can't return to his family. There is no place to come home to, it was burned down, destroyed until nothing was left. He has no home, no family, so he must not be a child anymore, right? Instead he must be this creature he sees in the water, a desperate little maggot wiggling around to stay alive. Now he wonders, what for? _

* * *

  
  


_ Sasuke doesn't leave the river's side. He stays there and vegatetes. Not bothering to eat, to move, he's content here on this stretch of the earth. There is no struggle here, just quiet and peace. He's found his refuge so he should just stay here. He cannot abandon it again, before that happens, he would rather become one with the river. _

_ So he vegatetes, waiting for an end. He wants to apologize to his brother, to beg for his forgiveness, but he just can't run anymore. He's too tired, the soles of feet are already blistered and ripped open after all.  _

_ He'll just lay here by the river and close his eyes. Maybe his dreams will be different this time, maybe he'll see his mother's face again. That would be so wonderful, so incredibly wonderful. _

_ He simply drifts away, but when he wakes, he's not in the wilderness anymore, but somewhere completely different. And he wakes to the image of a leaf cut in half hovering above him. _

* * *

They arrive in the evening, with only the last, weak rays of sun light to light the way. There is still half a mile distance left, but he can already make out the fields that line the mountain, its waters reflecting what little light they receive from above. His chest grows tight at the sight of them, but he releases the same tightness with the next breath. 

When they reach the entrance to the fields, a gate he had built himself, he tells his companions to wait and enters on his own, walking up the road to the little cottage at the far end of the fields. Warm, orange hued light shines from one of its windows, the kitchen as he recalls. The image comes to his mind unbidden, but it's more than welcome. His aunt and uncle sitting across from each other on the small kitchen table, eating the leftover of yesterday’s dinner, while arguing about this and that as he listens in from the sidelines. Instead of going to the door to knock, he walks towards the window and simply watches them, but of course his aunt senses his presence and turns around, jumping off her chair to hurry outside. 

“My boy!” she screams in delight, wounding her arms around him and pulling his head down to kiss his cheek once she reaches him. She’s a small woman, so small that she only comes up to his chest, but there’s strength in her and her width shows just that. It’s only been two months at most, but she still seems smaller than before and he hasn’t grown used to being so much taller than her. “You’re back.”

“I am,” he whispers into her hair, stroking his hand over her back. He pulls back from her embrace and sees his uncle slowly slander over the porch, hands crossed behind his back. 

“Well, look at what we got here,” says his uncle, standing only half a head taller than his wife. He approaches him and lays his hand on his shoulder, smiling as he looks him up and down. He’s clean-shaved except for his beard. When was the last time this old man had bothered to shave? It must have been several years back now. “First you go off, making us worry over you for months and now you return with these Konoha-nins at your back. What’s gotten into you?”

“I need to talk to Suigetsu, now,” Sasuke says, facing his uncle head on. "Can you please call him over?"

His uncle blows his nose, but nods and steps back into the cottage. 

“What happened?” his aunt asks, brows furrowed as she returns her gaze to Hatake and Sakura who still remain outside the gate. Their patience seems to know no bounds, it doesn’t bode well for him at all. 

“I don’t know yet, that’s why I am here.”

His aunt nods solemnly and makes her dissatisfaction with his answer clear, but also her resignation. She knows that he won't elaborate.

Sasuke gives her a curt nod and returns to the ninjas waiting at his door.

"Won't let us inside, Shinichi?" Sakura says once he stands with them. 

"We won't be staying here anyway."

Hatake raises a brow at that.

Sasuke snorts and shakes his head at their audacity. Shinobi from Konoha always want others to make exceptions for them, they want nothing but special treatment. "It's not like I was staying at either of your homes either, right?" 

“Touche,” Hatake replies and scans the area with his eye while standing absolutely still, shoulders slouched and hands deep in the pockets of his pants. 

Sasuke turns away from him and looks down the road to his right, eyes on the small puddles that litter the narrow sidewalks. 

“Are they your parents?” Sakura asks, stepping closer to him so that their shoulders are almost touching as they stare in the same direction. 

“No, they took me in and fed me when I was nothing but a homeless kid looking for food and shelter.”

“How kind of them,” she whispers, head lowered. 

One of the larger puddles begins to move erratically and when it grows larger, Sasuke knows that Suigetsu has arrived and he’s right, not a moment later, the water forms a human shape and morphs into Suigetsu’s thin, pale body. 

Sasuke rips his robe off himself and throws it toward his old friend, sighing in exasperation. When Suigetsu had first pulled off this neat little trick, Sasuke had thought that he couldn’t do it with clothes, but now he knows that to be false. This freak just seems to have an exhibitionist’s streak in him, much to his dismay. 

“I thought you would at least behave yourself when I got guests over, but I guess that was naive of me to think,” Sasuke complains, staggering over to his friend to pull him into a short embrace, breathing in his clean, salty beta scent. 

Suigetsu flashes his sharp teeth with one of his broad grins and grabs him by the shoulder, pushing him back towards his ‘guests’. “Who can bother with clothes in these stressful times anyway? Not me, that’s for sure.”

“Well, I still wish you would,” Sasuke comments. “But I’m not here to discuss your unhinged lifestyle. Tell me, is she fine?”

Suigetsu lets go of him and approaches Hatake, leaning in until there are only a few measly inches in between them and pulls away from the man the moment Hatake draws his hand back for a good punch. Suigetsu jumps back to Sasuke, gaze now on Sakura to whom he knows to keep his distance at least. What a gentleman. “She was called in and she had no choice but to follow his order.”

“Do you know why?”

“Well, another three years have passed and Orochimaru needs his next body. She is probably preparing his next victim for the takeover. A month and he’ll be in a brand new body to terrorize us with again.”

“So Orochimaru will truly not rest until he has an Uchiha as his vessel, huh?” Hatake says, rubbing his temples, his one visible eye covered by his hand. 

Sasuke looks away with a tense jaw. Anyone else would have simply spoken of the Sharingan and not said the name of a banned clan. Why is it always Hatake? Why does he always have to mention his family? Why won’t Hatake give him any rest? Is he testing him? Is he suspicious? Or is this all this withered man can spare for his deceased friend? These moments of remembrance that would brand anyone else as a traitor? The day Hatake ceases this torment is one he’s eagerly waiting for. 

“I was there when she set off with Orochimaru. She gave me this before she left, but neither I or anyone else I trust has been able to encrypt it.” Suigetsu passes over a small note to him. “So far, these are just a bunch of numbers to me. Hope you’ll find out what this shit is supposed to mean. I don’t want her rotting there with that man any longer than necessary, you know how annoying she gets after these expeditions.”

Sasuke ignores him and stares at the note instead. “This will take a while,” he whispers, running through the few codes he knows of.  _ What are you trying to tell me, Karin?  _ She knew when Orochimaru would be going into seclusion, why did she wait so long? There must be a reason, but he can’t think of one. He doesn’t like this at all, too much is up in the air and they don't have much time. 

“You’ll figure it out,” Suigetsu says, saluting him before he continues. “This is it from me. I’ll be on my way, can’t leave my post for too long.” He looks to the Konoha-nins and grins, eyes becoming bright with mirth as he takes off the robe Sasuke had given him and throws it back at him. “Good night to you. May this village treat you well.”

Suigetsu dissolves into water, leaving him alone with his two companions. 

“What a weird guy,” Sakura comments, shivering in disgust at his antics.

“You get used to it,” Sasuke replies in a deadpan tone. He raises the note to his eyes, but Hatake steps up to him and takes it from his fingers. He grabs his shoulder and smiles at him, proclaiming, “With this, the mission is already a success.”

Sasuke arches a brow. “What do you mean?”

“Well, this is the update we wanted and we know why she didn’t reply to us. Now that she’s indisposed, you’ll have to appoint someone else to her position. It can even be you, if you want to stay here. You did get quite a bit homesick, didn’t you?”

Sasuke snachtes the note from Hatake’s hand. “I will not leave your side, Hatake, you still haven’t finished my training.”

“I taught you my very own jutsu, what more could you possibly want from me?”

“Everything you have to offer, of course.” Sasuke smiles at the man. “And nothing less. Also, I already have someone in mind for this position, someone better equipped for the job, you see.” Come tomorrow morning, Sasuke will search for him, the most gentle and kind alpha he has ever met.

“Well, that’s good, I guess,” Hatake mumbles, putting the note he had folded neatly into his pocket before tilting his head up and gazing at the cottage, orange light still shining through its kitchen window. “You really won’t let us in, huh?”

“Our Shinichi is too stubborn to go back on his words, you know that already, Kakashi-Sensei, so stop teasing him already,” Sakura says, giggling once she sees Sasuke’s dismayed face. 

“Not even for dinner,” he counters and puts on his robe, before he starts to walk down the road. “We’ll be camping outside.”

  
  
  


It’s late into the night and the sky is dark, but clear, so perfectly clear that even the weakest, smallest stars are visible against the pitch black that the new moon affords the sky. 

Sasuke is awake. He hasn’t even bothered to lie down, instead he sits against the wide trunk of a tree that’s already lost all its leaves before autumn has even truly begun, while Sakura and Hatake sleep not too far from him, bodies held warm by their bedrolls. For once, he’s glad to be awake without feeling even the slightest bit tired. 

How he has missed this view… it pulls at him and something in his chest begins to ache, it feels like a bruise on his heart, a dull, but stringent pain. 

Homesick Hatake had called him. 

Homesick. 

_ Homesick. _

Sasuke simply can’t stop turning this word around in his mind, it has become a maddening chant, echoing through each convolution of his brain. Maybe that’s what he is down to the marrow of his bones, a homesick child lashing out at the world’s cruelties. 

Biting his lower lip, Sasuke shakes his head and tries to break off this vicious circle before it stays with him till morning. He shouldn’t allow Hatake to get under his skin so easily. There’s just something off about that man, the way he talks, the way he behaves- he seems broken and forced to function with what little will for life he has left. The fractures of Hatake’s life run deep, he’s been molded into the perfect soldier: loyal to a fault and obedient to his superior’s every word. Sasuke doesn’t like looking at him, much less talking to him and he thinks it’s because of this.

“It’s disturbing how much our sleeping schedules match, don’t you think?” Hatake says, disturbing the quiet of the night and causing Sasuke to go through what feels like the light version of a heart attack. “So what are you thinking about late at night? You’ve really got that melodramatic brooding down to a tee.”

In a sudden panic, Sasuke looks to the stars and answers, “I was thinking about Naruto.”

Hatake starts to smile and there’s something suggestive about the amused glint in his eye. “Is that so?” he drawls, pulling his bedroll open before he slanders over to him, moving as quiet as a ghost. He towers over him, leaning on the same trunk as him. 

Sasuke looks to the ground, hands moving over the grass at his feet. He tears one stalk off and pulls it into thin strands, feeling its moisture leak into his palm. He speaks in a quiet voice and keeps his eyes averted. “I- I told him that I would show him the night sky of my home, I wanted him to see the same stars as I, but I guess they won’t let him come with me.”

“Why do you think he wasn't allowed to come with us?” Hatake asks, voice mellow in a way Sasuke hadn’t heard before. 

“Because the Fourth doesn't trust me enough to let his omega son travel with me? Sakura and you are both betas, but I’m an unmated alpha, so I guess it would be too unseemly,” he answers, derision apparent in each one of his words. 

Hatake laughs quietly. “I thought you would have figured it out by now, it's no village secret anymore.” 

Sasuke gives him an inquiring look. “What should I have figured out by now?” 

“That Naruto is the vessel of Kyuubi, a very powerful Bijuu. But, well, maybe his being an omega does play a role in this decision after all, it has before. And after everything that has happened, Minato-Sensei has only become more and more protective.”

Naruto is a Jinchuuriki? Suddenly everything about the omega made sense, his ostracization by the villagers, his quiet suffering, his need to prove himself the strongest. It only makes him more angry on Naruto’s behalf. 

Sasuke clenches his hands into tight fists, the thin strands of grass crushed into pieces. He should have just taken Naruto with him.

“That’s not protection, that’s only control,” he spats, glaring at the sky above. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a heads up and a little teaser: the next chapter will be from Naruto's pov :))


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naruto's pov has finally come! And he gets to see a special someone ;)
> 
> Enjoy!

Naruto is angry, no, he is downright furious and he has been so for over a week now, maybe even for a much, much longer time. It feels like he is constantly angry, mad at everything and nothing in particular, but no one knows, no one sees it nor will they ever hear anything of it. It’s his burden to bear and he does it without any complaint. What would it change anyway? Who would even listen and take his words seriously? No one will be able to understand his frustration and he can’t fault them for this, they didn’t live through the things he did, how could they possibly know what it feels like to walk down these streets in his skin? 

Naruto is no longer a child, but he knows that he isn’t an adult yet either. He’s somewhere in between and feels all the more lost because of it. Twenty years on this earth and he still lives an imposter’s life. What else can a man become who has spent his entire life trying to please everyone around him, begging for a bit of affection from anyone willing not to hate him at first sight? Has he not been serving this village since he learned how to read to earn the acceptance of the villagers only for nothing to change in the end? He would be ashamed of himself, but he can’t allow himself to feel that way, since nothing much has changed, he has simply become more useful as the years progressed and the shame would surely kill him. For now, his quiet, private anger must suffice. 

“Naruto!” shouts his father and a minute later, a knock echoes through his room, vibrating off the walls and making his head spin. “Dinner is ready and this time, you will eat. I don’t want to hear any backtalk, understood?”

With a heavy sigh, Naruto rips his blanket off his body and stands up from his bed, slandering over to the door and unlocking it. He pulls it slightly open and moves through the narrow space, hitting it close once he’s past the threshold. A few, dragged steps later and he sits down on the well laid table in the spacious dining room, putting a little bit of rice and two thin slices of beef on his plate. 

His father sits down across from him and gives a disappointed sigh, using his chopsticks to add some vegetables that Naruto won’t eat either way to his plate. 

"Are you feeling better?" he asks, eyes wide with concern. 

Naruto shovels a bit of the rice into his mouth and nods absentmindedly. 

"But you don't look the part, maybe you should stay in for two or so days. We wouldn't want a repeat of what happened before, right?"

Naruto shakes his head and bites off half of one beef slice, eyes averted to his lap, where he rests his hands, open palmed and empty. 

"You really shocked me this time, Naruto. I thought we were already past this. I'm worried for you. You know that it can't go on like this. Sometimes, seclusion is the only option, even if it’s hard to bear."

Closing his eyes, Naruto nods and wishes for this terrible conversation to end as soon as possible. His fingers grow stiff, painfully tense, so he buries them in his legs and bides his time. “I know,” he whispers and looks to the side, at the door, eyes seeking an escape from this situation. “It won’t happen again, I promise, dad.”

“Please, eat some more,” his father says and dives in for his own meal, probably in a hurry to return to his work, but maybe he’s just at his wits’ end, having to deal with such a troublesome omega like him. 

That’s the end of their conversation, the limit of their interactions as father and son. Naruto knows that he is the one responsible for this estrangement, he was the first one to put distance between them, but at that time he hadn’t known that his father would give up so quickly, that he would give up at all. He had always thought that it was the duty of the father to seek a relationship with his child, that the father would use every opportunity to grow closer with his only son, but now he knows that fathers work differently than that. 

Now he knows the painful lesson of disillusionment that only parents can teach their children. All his dreams, his hopes, they were happier, warmer than whatever this is. If he could, he would return to the blissful joy of the first few months after he got his father back. Those times were the happiest of his life and their end had been all the more bitter for it. 

Naruto stands up and takes the plate, throwing his leftovers into the trashcan before he cleans his dishes and goes back into his room, locking the door once he’s inside. He rushes over to the window and opens it as wide as possible, leaning over the windowsill to breathe in some fresh air. His skin runs too hot and feels too tight, like some shriveled up little thing that can’t keep his flesh together, ready to burst open under the slightest strain. His room is too narrow, the walls are enclosing him and his head is too small to contain all his raging thoughts. He wants to go out, to run into the forest and hide away for a while, but chances are high that he’ll be found and returned to his home within the blink of an eye. They are already expecting him to sneak out and his scent would leave an easy trail to follow, if he dared to anyway. 

Life has truly delivered him one disadvantage after the other and he's slowly but surely running out of ideas on how to overcome them. Everything seems to lead back to one simple condition of his. He’s a Jinchuuriki and the ramifications of this condition run deeper than he would have ever expected. There’s more to it than the terrible loneliness of his childhood that he likes to ignore on most days, the inherent monstrousness of his existence that repels so many. So much more. 

Because he is also an Omega, but not a normal one, he’s dysfunctional. A freak of nature, who is stuck dealing with irregular heat cycles. Once every three month? That’s not the case for him. Once a month, two consecutive heats with only one week of rest in between, not one single heat in over six months? He’s been through it all and unlike the other few omega ninjas, he doesn’t even have the option to suppress them, because the demon inside him has graced him such a fast metabolism that no form of suppressants works on him, much to his chagrin and Tsunade-baachan’s continued frustration. Most times, he feels it coming, building under his skin, limbs becoming fidgety, mind growing too restless to calm down, like the tide before the inevitable flood. 

Sometimes it hits him like a trainwreck and those are by far the worst. With such a quick onset, he has no way to prepare himself for it and ends up helplessly exposed, at the mercy of whoever is around him at the time, it’s his luck that he’s strong enough to fight them all off. It’s been this way since his first, full fledged heat, the preheats he had suffered before were nothing but pale imitations that were easy enough to hide. Everything changed three years ago. With seventeen, his life took a turn for the worse and his relationship to his newly returned father went downhill. He also got rewarded with a pesky bodyguard, who is always watching him from the shadows and reporting back to his father. A member of the ANBU with the most infuriating face he has ever seen. Naruto just can’t stand his insincerity, always greeting him with a smile that’s so obviously faked that he doesn’t understand why the beta even bothers. And he’s so goddamn rude, too! 

Naruto quickly shuts the window and closes the curtains, unwilling to offer Sai’s peeping eyes anymore material for his nightly wanks. He starts walking up and down his room like he’s been doing it for the past three days, feeling himself grow more and more insane with boredom with every step he takes. His pace quickens and slows down again, steps becoming increasingly erratic until he can’t take it anymore and throws himself across the room and into his bed, thrashing around like a fish out of water. He doesn’t scream, although he very much wants to, but that would only lead to his father breaking in the door and rushing inside to offer comfort that will mostly feel empty anyway, so he bites his lips and tries to go through this rage fit as quietly as possible.

It takes an embarrassingly long amount of time for him to calm down. Now he feels blissfully exhausted, emptied to the point that he feels a familiar kind of hollow ache, so familiar, in fact, that he draws comfort from it. It’s gotten dark now too and the dim moonlight is so very soothing to his frayed nerves. He crawls back to the head of his bed and pushes the curtain back for an inch, peeking outside into the night sky. 

It’s an overcast night, the moon is barricaded by clouds and only a few stars are visible. Naruto purses his lips and leans closer to the window, pressing his nose against the cold glass. Mist soon forms on the window’s surface and he absentmindedly glides a finger over it, eyes fixed on the night sky. 

_ I should have told you that I will never be able to see your night sky. I wonder how it looks. I wonder if there are truly as many stars as you said. Shinichi, what are you doing right now? Are you finally happy to be back home? _

Naruto closes his eyes and slowly glides down into the mattress, grabbing for his blanket and pulling it over himself until every inch of him is covered. His eyelids feel hot, gummy, but he refuses to cry, instead he draws his knees to his chest and winds his arms around his legs, hugging himself as tightly as possible. 

He can't help but feel like an idiot for thinking of the alpha now, for reacting so strongly, but it's not just him making him feel like this. It's just that Shinichi had been so attentive and kind to him, in his own way at least. Naruto isn't really used to this kind of behaviour, especially from an alpha. Most of them shy away from him, most of them don't want to taint their skin with a demon carrier's touch.

Shinichi is different, because despite his arrogance, his stubbornness and his annoying habit of playing the mysterious and secretive guy, he seems to see him, to notice things none of his friends ever have. Naruto had never known what a rare, but intimidating rush it was to be truly seen and heard, but now he feels close to understanding it.

And Shinichi's eyes… he recognizes the expression that lies in them. He knows what lies beneath. He's seen it many times. The anger, the loneliness, the hunger for more, he's seen it in his own reflection often enough. 

God, he wants to know more about the alpha, he wants to know about his past, his life in his home country, everything, then his mind will finally be free of all these questions and he’ll stop thinking so much about him. Yes, the only way to rid himself of these never ceasing questions is to answer every last one of them. Well, that's easier said than done and now he can’t even talk to Shinichi, because his father has once again decided to imprison him in his own home. 

Naruto knows that his father only means to protect him, this is his way of showing his love for his son, it has to be, but his father doesn’t seem to realize that it’s  _ smothering  _ him. He can’t take it any longer. If this is truly his only option, is it even worth it anymore?

And for once, he won’t stop here, he won’t just wallow in self-pity, he won’t revert back to those old days. It’s  _ right  _ of him to be angry, he’s been lied to, kept out of so many important meetings, reduced to nothing but a kept omega of the old days, waiting for his mate to free him from his heat den. Being only allowed to either to train under supervision or to rot away in this village is not enough, it never was. Even Sakura and Kakashi-Sensei… Naruto squeezes his eyes shut and presses his hand against his mouth, crushing his lips against his teeth. 

This can’t go on like this. It’s time to show them that he deserves more than this. 

* * *

  
  


It's only dawn and his father has already left the house to return to his office. Naruto has been waiting for this moment all night long, pondering and planning over and over again. 

He has already sent out his first clone shadow and the second one will go out in a few minutes and after half an hour has passed, he'll sneak out through the backyard. Sai will know the first one is just a fake, but the second one who'll sneak through the bathroom window will surely fool him, leaving him with the chance to get out of this house without anyone noticing. It's not a perfect plan, but he's good at improvising, he'll find a way once he's desperate enough to get creative. 

Now, he's hiding in his father’s study room, waiting for the right moment to give his clone the signal to go out. They are looking at each other in silence and Naruto can't help but notice how much weight he's lost, almost looking like a twig. The first thing he'll do in Otogakure is to eat his way through their cuisine, he'll force Shinichi to guide him through all their best dishes. Naruto nods, smiling to himself, and abruptly remembers to give his clone the sign to leave. He uses the remaining time to go over his plan, taking out the map he has made during the night. Otogakure is a vast nation, but its populace is low and there are only very few villages. It’s a gamble, but it could have been worse, so he’s quite optimistic that it will work out in the end. The only obstacle that poses a real threat to him is getting out of Konoha, but he’ll succeed even at that, he has to. No way is he going to sit here any longer and spend his days twiddling his thumbs. He’s still a goddamn member of Team 7, either they will have to accept that or finally give him an official dismissal. He’s tired of playing the ghost.

Half an hour has passed and Naruto steps out of the stuffed study room, slithering through the hallway and moving across the backyard. He keeps close to the outer wall and walks quickly, hiding in the thicket as he crosses the lengthy garden. When he finally reaches the corner closest to the main gate, he jumps over the wall and quickly changes his appearance to that of an older woman with the typical flashy attire of a fast paced tourist. He would have prefered to take the eastern gate, but it’s just too far away from his father’s house and it’s safer to shorten his time within these walls, even if it means that he’ll waste time beyond the borders. 

Naruto is calm and relaxed as he walks through the main streets, he’s done this so often now, changed himself to a whole new person to enjoy a night of normalcy, he’s become a proficient enough actor to pull this off without any troubles. So he strolls past the crowd of villagers, smiles at the children playing tag, wrinkles his nose at a group of rowdy alphas and finally makes it to the main gate. It stands a hundred meters or so away from him, tall and imposing, promising him freedom, while threatening him with its loss at the same time. What a cruel, double faced thing. 

Faced with his first destination, he can’t resist the temptation to quicken his pace and so he races towards the gate, steps flighty and rushed. He’s so close now, the gate grows ever taller, he can almost taste the fresh breeze whisking in between the narrow trunks of the redwoods. A determined smile steals across his face and he grabs his bag, holding it close to his stomach as he carries on. Only a few more steps and he’ll cross the border. Feeling daring enough, he gives Izumo and Kotetsu a friendly smile while keeping enough of a distance to guarantee that they won’t catch his scent, waving them goodbye as he finally takes his first step outside in what feels like an eternity. 

Naruto breathes a sigh of relief and walks straight ahead, on his way to enter the surrounding forest. He’ll change direction once he’s outside the sight of any Konoha ninja who might be patrolling the border. And once the plastered road grows muddy, uneven and the cobblestones are entirely replaced by small, grey stones, Naruto darts a quick glance back and decides that it's time to leave the main road behind. 

Just as he is about to veer off course, an all too familiar voice calls out his name. The image of that infuriatingly empty smile flashes across his eyes and he falters, but only briefly, and quickly recollects himself, running straight into the high thicket of the surrounding forest, before he jumps onto a branch and dashes through the trees. Sai won’t catch him this time, he has come too late and it’s finally Naruto’s turn to win, now that he has the head start. 

Naruto breaks out of his Henge and pushes all his energy into his legs, working on everything he has to widen his head start as much as possible. No one has more stamina than him, no one is as stubborn as him and he’ll be faster than ever before.

He will give it his all and succeed. He will reach Otokagure. He will confront his teammates. He will see Shinichi again. 

Sai won’t be able to stop him this time. Even if he catches him, Naruto will simply free himself and start all over again. He will show his father that he is more than the useless freak of an omega son who needs nothing but protection. 

* * *

  
  


It’s been a day or so now since Sai has lost his trail. Naruto still can’t bring himself to take a break, too worried he’ll lose the upper hand he has fought so hard for just for a few minutes of rest. It’s just not worth it, but he also has to confess that he’s slowly but surely pushing his limits. The strain in his legs has been slowing him down for a while now, the soles of his feet burn each time he jumps and it will only get worse. So what should he do? Rest and risk being caught or run ahead and risk the same in the end?

But it’s been a day after all, enough time and distance to make up for a five minute break to refresh himself. The first villages of Otogakure are nearby as well, they should be an hour distance away at most. 

Pausing on the next branch, Naruto scans his surroundings and notices a narrow opening in the forest's otherwise dense and continuous canopy. Without thinking it over even once, his feet change direction and head over to the supposed clearing only to find a small meadow with plentiful flowers growing all over it, a shock of red in the midst of nothing but shades of brown and green and at the other end of the meadow, a narrow but tall hill rises from the ground with a small, fast creek at its feet. 

Unable to resist such simple beauty, Naruto jumps down onto the ground, careful not to tramp any of the flowers. With a groan of pain, he bows down, lifting his finger to gently feel along one of the red petals, afraid to hurt it with even the faintest touch. He bows down even lower then, until he's well on his knees, face only an inch away from the petals, and admires the unique shape of the flower. The petals remind him of a spider's many legs, thin and long as they are. He has planted many flowers in his gardens, watered and nourished them day by day, they had once been his only companies, but out of all the flowers and plants he has known up to now, none ever looked like this, none possessed such elegant and deathly beauty. 

His fingers begin to twitch with the desire to pluck one of these flowers out and keep it with him, but he has no book with him or anything else to immortalize its lovely shape. So he resists this urge and lets go of the soft petals, grabbing his wrist to keep himself from destroying one in vain. Instead he sits down on the wet grass and leans back on his arms, smiling as he lies in the midst of the vibrantly red bed of flowers, eyes closed as he tries to enjoy the few minutes of rest he has under the weak light of the afternoon sun, ignoring the throbbing skin of his soles.

Out of nowhere, he hears a voice call out, as if in prayer, "Is this a fever dream?" 

Naruto rips his eyes open and rises from his prone position, leaning on one arm as he quickly looks around himself. At the far edge of the meadow, under the shadows of the forest’s canopy, he finds the silhouette of a man, a swordsman, tall and proud. His eyes widen in recognition and his mouth suddenly feels dry, his free hand clutches at his chest. He holds his breath, afraid to break this moment before it has the chance to live. 

“Have you come to release me from my suffering?” Shinichi says with the same dark amusement that Naruto has grown so used to tingling his every word. Somehow, he still manages to sound earnest, there is a fervor to his voice, a passion that cannot simply be feigned. He takes a step forward, walking out of the shadows and into the light of the clearing, exposing himself to his eyes. 

Naruto's throat grows tight and his hand drops to the ground. "What happened?"

Shinichi’s robe is missing and even from this much distance, Naruto can make out the many wounds that litter his upper body, fresh blood dripping down his skin and wide bruises marring his right flank. At least his face seems to have been spared. 

Naruto stands up, wincing as hot pain rises up his spine, and repeats his question, already moving towards the alpha, but Shinichi takes another step towards him and raises his hand, signalling him to stop and for some reason, he does just that and waits for Shinichi to approach him, watching him as he walks around the flower bed. 

Finally, Shinichi answers, "The Oto-nins came to my home and expected a simple, easy massacre to fill their pockets with, but I gave them a battle instead. That battle has since become war."

“Did you win your fight?” Naruto asks, eyes fixed on Shinichi’s injured chest. His rich and earthy scent has grown weaker as well. 

“Of course.”

“How many?”

“Many.”

Naruto huffs and crosses his arms, scowling in his frustration. “How come you are here and not with a physician? These wounds could get infected or something.”

Shinichi hesitates and shortly averts his eyes before raising them to meet his. “I was running after a runaway raider. All the others died in battle and I wanted one alive for interrogation. I followed him into the forest, but then, I just stopped running and you must know that I never stop, I always carry on, but suddenly there was this scent of honey and citrus and my legs just refused to follow after the raider, instead they took me here to you.”

His mouth falls open, breath catching in his throat. Flustered, he falls back a step, hissing once his feet land on a small branch. What did he just say? Naruto doesn’t know what to say, he’s been rendered speechless, but no one would have an answer ready after such a declaration, so he just nods his head and keeps his eyes averted, wondering if he’s suffering hallucinations for not drinking or eating enough. 

“You are hurt,” Shinichi states, displeased. 

Naruto hesitantly raises his eyes to Shinichi’s face and holds onto his own arm. “It’s probably just a bunch of blisters, they’ll heal in no time.”

“Still, let me have a look.” Shinichi grabs him by his wrist and pulls him towards the nearby creek, looking back at him with every step they take together. 

Naruto follows him quietly and sits down when Shinichi points at the ground. Shinichi kneels down next to him and keeps his eyes on him as his hands move towards his feet. His hands pull off his shoes and lower his feet into the cool, soothing water. And what does Naruto do? He just watches on as the alpha gently tends to his wounds, while he is bleeding from wounds much worse than his. 

Naruto furrows his brows and looks to the side. Quietly, he says, “Why won’t you ask me why I am here?”

The corners of Shinichi's mouth quirk up and he ceases his movement for a moment, before he answers, “Because I know the reason already.”

Naruto pouts and draws his leg away. “How? You know so little about me, it’s as good as nothing.”

“I know more than you think. I know that you have something to prove.”

“Is that so?” Naruto mutters under his breath and allows Shinichi to touch him again. 

Shinichi nods and lets go of his feet, cleaning his hands in the cold water before he falls back onto the ground, sitting so close to him that their bodies are touching. “I only hope your father will give you the chance to do so.”

Naruto laughs mirthlessly. “You must really see me as an idiot, huh? Am I that easy to read?”

“Only if you bother to look, to listen,” Sasuke replies, watching the little stream at their feet. “As for the idiot part, you definitely do that word justice.”

“Hey, you bastard,” he bites out and hits Shinichi on his shoulder, who only grins in return. Quietly, Naruto adds, “Not many bother.”

“No.”

With a heavy sigh, Naruto lies down and crosses his arms, tilting his head back. Out of the corner of his vision, he notices a white mouse, lined black, a living, moving drawing at the other end of the meadow and his chest grows tight. So he is here already, huh? Has he wasted too much time after all? Can't he have another quiet minute with Shinichi?

Naruto sits up again and quietly puts on his shoes. He stands up and stares into the forest. Shinichi follows his example. Naruto turns towards him and says, "Promise me that you will keep me here with you and I promise you that I will stand on your side and fight against your enemies with you."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so surprised that I managed to finish this one on time. 
> 
> Exam week is quickly approaching, so there might be a delay until the next chapter is up, especially since it will be a turning point for the story, but I'll try my best.
> 
> Anyways, have fun reading!

Sasuke stares into Naruto’s eyes, they are wide and open and much too trusting, their blue so profound and deep that he wants nothing more than to look away, but Naruto’s words hold him hostage. How can he so lightly pledge himself to someone? 

_ I will stand on your side and fight against your enemies with you. _

The omega’s words play in a constant loop in his head and he can’t help but smile, thinking of all the various possibilities, if he plays this right. It's the fastest root into Konoha's heart. If he has Naruto on his side, if the omega chooses him… how thrilling it would be to have Naruto stand next to him as they face the rest of Konoha in battle. 

_ If only you knew who my enemies were, if only you knew that being on my side means opposing all that is Konoha, you would regret your words in an instant.  _

But his thoughts come to a halt as he finally starts to notice the tension in Naruto's body. His hands are balled into fists, but Sasuke can still see that they are shaking. And now that Naruto has said his part, his gaze ventures off into the forest, narrowed and bright in his growing anger. What is he looking for? 

Sasuke seizes Naruto by his shoulder and pulls him back towards himself. "Did someone follow after you? Was it an Oto-nin?" 

Naruto snorts and pulls away from his grip. "No, it's something much worse than that. It's my fucking bodyguard, although I prefer to refer to him as my own private stalker. I… apologize in advance."

Sasuke quirks a brow at that and follows Naruto's gaze, while his fingers move to the hilt of his chokuto. He straightens his back and pushes back his shoulders, ignoring the stinging sensation of his wounds as they are stretched taut. One of them even starts to seep a little bit of blood, he can feel the moisture glide down his skin, but he pays it no mind, he's fought in worse conditions and came out as the winner every single time. This Konoha ninja won't stand a chance against him. Sasuke sure as hell won't let him take Naruto back against his will. There is still progress to be made with him, still too much distance to successfully ensnare him.

"Sai," Naruto calls out suddenly, taking a step forward and out of the shadow of the tall trees, a slim man walks into the clearing, skin as white as paper while his hair is pitch black, but what makes him tighten his fingers around the hilt of his chokuto is the white mask on his face, its cheeks lined in an abhorrent red. 

"I will keep you with me, Naruto, but I will hold you to your words," Sasuke says as he steps in front of him, keeping his eyes on the intruder. "Don't you dare go against them."

Naruto flashes a wide grin at him, the tension momentarily gone from his face. It's a look that makes his fingers twitch with the need to touch. "No need to worry. I never break my word, believe me."

Sasuke nods and watches as the ANBU member slowly approaches them, his stride nonchalant and utterly composed, so much that it becomes unnatural. He draws his chokuto out of its sheath and waits for this Sai to come closer, but the ANBU stops, leaving the red sea of flowers in between them. 

After the silence becomes stagnant, Naruto’s brash voice sounds through the clearing. “I won’t come back with you, Sai, so you either piss off back to the village or, as much as I prefer for you to be gone, you stay here with me. That’s the only compromise I’m willing to make, so think wisely.”

When the ANBU raises his arm, Sasuke immediately draws his chokuto higher, but his hand settles on the mask and removes it with one smooth movement. “Is this alpha really the reason you defied your Hokage? Is he worthy of your rebellion? Haven't you outgrown these childish antics?” With a look up and down his body, he adds, “Is this rogue rebel deserving of your trust?”

Sasuke snorts, equal parts amused and irritated by the sheer rudeness of this beta. "Oh, shut up. You really are a pest, aren't you?”

The ANBU feigns a smile, moving the corners of his mouth up, while his eyes remain utterly blank. He approaches them and pointedly passes Sasuke by, stopping right in front of the omega. “Naruto, please reconsider.”

Sasuke turns to them, keeping a close eye on the ANBU, and watches as Naruto fixes him with a glare, unwilling to retreat back for even an inch. “Sai, I will stay here. I’m still a member of Team 7, don’t you forget that.” He darts a quick look at Sasuke, eyes dropping to the bleeding graze at his flank. “We can’t waste anymore time here, we have to get Shinichi to his comrades, he needs treatment and I won’t let your useless mission come before the wellbeing of a ‘rogue rebel’.”

“As you wish,” Sai concedes, giving him the exact same smile as before, but his eyes are narrowed now. He steps even closer to Naruto, uncomfortably so, and leans his face towards Naruto's. Into his ear, he says, loud enough so that Sasuke can hear it just as clearly as Naruto. “But know that this is a dangerous gamble, you could put yourself in danger and jeopardize your team’s mission. After all, you are nothing if not unpredictable.”

“That’s a gamble I’m more than willing to take,” Naruto bites back and scowls at the ANBU. “You should stop looking down on me. I know how important orders are to you, so don't forget that I’m your charge. I decide where to go, you can at most follow after me.”

Sai nods and retreats to an appropriate distance. “Then I’ll make sure your mission ends quickly, you have my everlasting support.” He turns to Shinichi. "Lead the way, please. Wouldn't want you to die on us so soon, you still have to pay back our village for the hassle of training you."

Sasuke decides not to acknowledge Sai's insults and keeps his anger down with the sweet visions of his payback. Yes, Konoha has trained him well, it has molded him into the man he is today and he will smother them all with his  _ gratitude. _

He turns around and walks straight towards the hideout where Hatake and Sakura are waiting for him to return. He'll give them a heartfelt reunion with the teammate they had so callously left behind.

Then he will go his own way. There are still matters left to settle. There are too many wounded, too many losses to turn his back to his village's people. His heart aches for them, for the all the despondent people of this world, whose homes were uprooted for nothing but power hungry Shinobi.

* * *

The hideout lies hidden under a circle of jagged, sharp rocks that reach up to the branches of the tallest trees. It was the closest one after the battle had taken them farther and farther away from their usual location. Once the battle had come to its end, the need for undisturbed rest had been a dire one for the Konoha-nins, Sasuke could tell as much. 

With Naruto and Sai following close behind him, he enters the circle through a narrow opening, walking down steep stairs in utter darkness. Only when he hears uneven, forced breathing come from Naruto and feel as fingers grab at the seam of his pants, does he bother to conjure a little, fickle flame on the tip of his finger. Fourteen steps down and the way inside is cut off by a thick, robust wall. He extinguishes the flame and pokes at his bleeding wound, collecting his blood to draw a seal on the wall. The seal shines a bright red for a few seconds, before it grows dark once more and the wall dissolves into thin air. 

An awed gasp comes from behind him and he smiles beside himself. So easy to impress, too easy almost, but only someone honest reveals their thoughts so carelessly. 

Sasuke quickly moves to the side, as Naruto suddenly decides to barge into the dim room that's now been revealed. 

"Kakashi-Sensei," he says, voice faint with shock. "Sensei," he repeats as he finally reaches the bed where the wounded man lies listless, cold sweat on his forehead as he bears the pain in silence. Naruto grabs Hatake's hand. "What happened?" he asks, eyes moving frantically across the room as he waits for answers.

Sakura moves from her quiet corner towards Naruto, eyes wide with her own surprise. She moves without her usual confidence, limbs more jittery than graceful and her face grows ever more apprehensive, brows furrowed as she regards the omega at her Sensei's bedside. Sakura looks to him once, searching for guidance that he won't give her, and when she realizes this, she returns her focus on Naruto, laying a hand on his shoulder as she crouches down next to her teammate. "It's fine, Naruto. I already took care of the worst, he'll be good as new in a few hours. All he needs is rest, so don't worry."

"She's right," comes Hatake's raspy, quiet voice. "I'm just a little tired."

Naruto reluctantly lets go of his Sensei's hands, but remains on his knees and quietly looks at him. The silence persists and Sasuke watches as Sakura and Hatake grow ever more restless, the discomfort of having to wait for Naruto's reaction has them exchanging one look after the other with each other. 

Naruto stands up when they least expect it and moves towards the other end of the room, where he can see each one of them. "What happened up to now? I need an update."

Sasuke darts a quick look at Hatake and watches him as he props himself up on his elbows. A tense line forms between his eyebrows and sweat drops down to his shirt. "Why?"

"Why?" Naruto repeats with scorn, voice booming with barely concealed wrath. "Because I'm here to fight alongside you and keep you from getting hurt like this. And don't even think for a second that you can send me back to my father. Am I not your student too? So why keep me away from it all? I’m not as helpless as you think."

“I know, Naruto.” Hatake closes his eyes and smiles. "Then I guess my hands are bound. I have no choice but to accept your help after such a heartfelt declaration from my dear student. Sakura, you do it please. I need my rest." He turns away from them, laying down on his side.

She groans and glares at Hatake. “You should take your job more seriously.”

“So what’s the current situation?” Naruto asks again and walks to the center of the small room, staring back at Sakura with an expectant look. 

“A lot has happened and most of it was not planned, one day something just forced the situation to boil over and suddenly we were in the middle of a war. There was an initial dispute after some raiders set fire to a house with a family of five still inside. The locals refused to lay low any longer and took everything they could use as a weapon to go after the Oto-nins. Most of them died and the few ones to survive came to us to ask for help and so battle after battle ensued.”

Naruto’s face grows pensive, eyes averted as he rubs one of his temples. “What about Orochimaru? Did you not come here to get some information on him?”

“Did they tell you nothing?” Sasuke interrupts, pushing himself off the wall that he has been leaning on up till now. “We came here because our informant went missing.”

Naruto narrows his eyes at him “Well, did you find your spy?”

“She went with Orochimaru but left us a note behind.”

“What does it say?”

Sasuke sighs. “It took me a while to decode it, but we now know when Orochimaru will be the most vulnerable. We also know where he will be hiding. In just one week, Orochimaru will be taking over his new vessel.”

“That’s great news!” Naruto exclaims suddenly, hands balled into fists as he stares at him with renewed vigor, but at the following silence, he becomes withdrawn. “Or not?” he adds quietly, brows furrowed in confusion when the others in the room refuse to share his excitement. “What’s the problem? I don’t get it. Isn’t this a perfect opportunity to finally get rid of him for good?”

Sasuke shakes his head and approaches the omega, stopping within an arm’s distance. “It’s ideal, but we're under constant fire. They are sending out raiders in waves and we're barely keeping up with their relentless attacks as it is. It won't take long before they have brazed down entire villages. The people are suffering, many children have been orphaned, entire households have been lost to explosions and there is barely any food left to feed our elders. I can't take any actions against Orochimaru, if it means that there will only be one less obstacle for the raiders. I can't abandon them like that. But time is also short, my informant gave us a window of just one evening. If we miss it, there won't be any next chance in the next three years."

Naruto's face morphs into a grimace. Gone is his hope, his excitement, there's only a pained expression left. "Have the children been evacuated? They shouldn't be witnessing so much death and misery. Are they somewhere safe now?"

Sasuke is taken aback by the omega's questions. This is certainly not the reaction of a Shinobi and even less the priorities of one. Such concern should be disconcerting, but on Naruto, it's not, he's just too sincere. "As safe as they can be. We have good people looking after them and before something can happen to the children, I'll be notified by them."

Naruto nods and palms his face, gliding his hand over his skin and pulling it down with him. "What can we do?" he asks quietly, eyes shifting around as he searches for an answer. 

Sakura takes pity on him and gives him one, eyes for once soft as she looks into his worried face. "We already called for reinforcements."

"Yes," Sai agrees and his mellow, controlled voice is jarring to hear after their tumultuous conversation. "Your request came in already. A team is on their way as we speak. They should be arriving in a day or so."

"How many did they send for help?" Sasuke asks, eyeing the ANBU with open suspicion. 

Sai smiles at him, hands raised in a placating manner. "I don't know. That doesn't fall under my jurisdiction. Unfortunately."

Sasuke rips his eyes off this useless beta and takes a deep breath. "I'll find out soon enough. I'll be on my way then." He turns to leave, mind already wandered off to his next destination, when a hand suddenly grabs his wrist to pull him back and keep him from leaving. "What?" he hisses, ripping his wrist free as he turns back around, the scowl on his face deepening.

But Naruto only glares back at him. "I won't let you go anywhere without letting Sakura heal your wounds first. You can't just waltz back into what's basically an active war zone with injuries like that."

Sasuke's eyes flick over to Sakura, she seems just as unenthused as him. "I don't have time for that. I've fought in worse conditions."

"Stop being so arrogant and accept our help,” Naruto retorts, voice loud in the small room.

“Stop being a nuisance.” Sasuke’s eyes glide down to the omega’s lips, shining wet with his saliva from where he had licked over them. He’s pursing his lips at him now, but Sasuke tries to ignore it. “I will go now.”

“No.”

"What do you mean  _ no?"  _

"Sakura, please just do this for me and I'll let your lies slide this once." Naruto's heated gaze returns to him. "And you! Let her do her job. She's one of the best medical ninjas I know, no need to be so distrustful."

Sakura approaches him slowly, dragging herself across the room to have a look at his wounds. "At least this won't take too long," she mutters as her hands begin to glow in a pale green and in the next second, those hands hover over the worst of his wounds. It's a weird sensation, a pain unlike anything he's ever felt before, it's not especially strong, just of a different quality. The feeling of tissue and skin growing back and connecting again. A minute at most passes and Sakura withdraws her healing hands, walking back to her corner at Hatake's bedside. He hasn’t taken his eyes off Naruto even once, quietly observing the omega. It’s the only thing that keeps him calm while his enemy is touching him so intimately. 

Naruto tilts his head to the side and crosses his arms over his chest, giving him a smug smile as he eyes the pale skin where his wounds had been just seconds ago. “Was it that bad?” 

“What about your feet?” he asks.

Naruto’s eyes widen and he looks taken aback by his question. “I heal pretty fast.”

With a sigh, he replies, “If you say so.”

Sasuke nods towards Sakura in a show of gratitude and finally leaves the small room behind, rushing outside to escape the oppressive, stale air of the hideout. It really shouldn’t surprise him to hear steps following him close by. 

“Don’t walk so slow, if you want to tag along,” Sasuke says, quickening his pace as he enters back into the forest, daring to take one look back, wanting to catch a glimpse of Naruto as he runs after him. It’s a sight that he can get used to, a sight that somehow makes him feel warm and it’s a low warmth, one that relaxes some of the painful tension in his body. 

When Naruto finally catches up to him, Sasuke leans closer for a moment and takes a deep breath, tasting honey on his tongue, fainter today, but still strong enough to pull him even closer. Yes, he might just want more of this. 

It’s just too bad that he can sense the presence of another person not too far away from them. Sasuke gives a derisive huff. Even in the vicinity of his home, those eyes will still watch over him and keep him from getting too close to Naruto, but Sai is just another obstacle that he will get rid off when the right time comes. 

* * *

  
  


“Where are we going?” Naruto asks, a quiet whisper that could have easily been carried away from him with a strong breeze.

Sasuke slows down and turns to face the omega. “Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t want anyone listening in. Also, it’s so dark now and we’re still in the middle of a forest.”

“So what?”

Naruto’s eyes shift around. “Have you never heard the legends of the forest spirits?”

Sasuke looks skyward, at the intertwining branches above their heads, the canopy that’s slowly thinning out its leaves in preparation for winter. In the shadow, in the dark of midnight, their last bifurcations look like spider webs, many of them will be left bare in winter. “Not much, I never paid much attention to hearsay like that.”

“Too bad, really. I love stories about ghosts, gods and… demons, even if I end up getting scared sometimes, but I never run away and it’s only true bravery, when you feel afraid, right?”

“What makes you like them so much?”

Naruto’s eyes widen and he draws away from him, fiddling with the hem of his jacket. He’s grown nervous suddenly, but Sasuke struggles to understand why. “There was a time when I was always traveling, never staying at one place for too long. My companion, an old Sensei of mine, would tell me all sorts of stories, most of them were raunchy romances, but sometimes he would explain some of the local myths, those were my favourites. I guess they just remind me of that time.”

A token of past freedom then? Maybe it was a time before Naruto had presented, before his father had returned to his side or maybe the omega is now simply trying to confess the truth about his status as a Jinchuuriki in a roundabout way. “Tell me one, we still have half an hour before we arrive.”

“I’m not half the storyteller that my Sensei is, but you’ll have to make due with what I’ve got. I think I’ll tell you something about tree spirits, yes, that will do.” Naruto stops in his tracks and brings his finger to his chin, thinking so hard that Sasuke’s almost convinced he’ll start hearing his thoughts as well. A few seconds of silence pass with only the chirping of insects and the rustling of branches echoing through the forest, before Naruto starts walking again. “There was this small town we visited, somewhere near the border of the Fire Nation, and the locals would always tell the newcomers this following warning: ‘Never cut down an old tree, never rip off its branches carelessly, but if you do dare and the wound starts to seep red blood instead of water or resin, then the spirits inside will curse you and your bloodline. This curse will grant you powers, but it comes at a price and the more you use them, the higher the cost.’ So my Sensei asked after the prize and they answered, ‘It will be your freedom, for if you set one foot out of the tree’s shadow, you will lose your soul and wander through the world as an empty shell, unable to return to the place where your heart resides.´ The next question came from me, I wondered, if anyone had ever been able to lift the curse. Do you know what the town elders said?”

Sasuke falters in his step, watching every miniscule change in Naruto’s expression, drinking in his joy. Why is he so happy to have someone listen to his little story? Why would someone smile so brightly over something so insignificant? Suddenly, his chest grows cold, there’s that emptiness that feeds into his void again. What kind of man is he to grow envious over such a childish virtue? “What did they say?”

“There was only one human, a woman who regained her freedom. The spirit fell in love with her and as time passed she returned his love. The spirit had never once left his tree, he went inside and never dared to venture out again and over the time, after having only met cruel people who would always stomp on his roots, rip off his skin and tear his limbs from him without ever once apologizing for causing him such pain, he had grown very afraid of the outside world, but this one woman was the only one not to curse the spirit back, she was the only one to show sincere remorse, the only one who tried to understand the loneliness that drove the spirit to committing his wrathful revenge. This woman who kept talking to him, who always touched his skin so gently, she banished his loneliness, freed him from the shackles of his own fear and allowed him to leave his tree behind. And so the woman lifted not only her own curse, but also the spirit’s and together they roamed the world, free and always in love.”

Who is the spirit? Who the human? Sasuke shuts his eyes close and shakes his head, ridding himself of these thoughts. “Not bad for a nuisance like you, not bad at all.”

“So you liked it?” Naruto asks, beaming up at him. “It was one of my favourites.”

“It’s… okay,” Sasuke replies, the corners of his mouth quirtking up once he sees the pout come back to the omega’s lips. “Come, we should hurry up. We’ll be carrying a lot of bags and I would like to be done before sunrise.”

“Bags?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Now shut up and follow after me,” Sasuke commands, jumping onto a thick branch to his right. 

“Don’t get so rude with me, bastard,” Naruto shouts after him, but he follows him not a second later and together they run through the dark forest. 

The closer Sasuke gets to the mountaintop, the more the lightheadedness that Naruto’s honey scent, his bright presence has put him under vanishes. The brightness starts to fade into a dull grey, only the familiar sense of apprehension and doom lingers. The next days will be hard, but at least he’ll finally have the chance to rid this world of the stain that Orochimaru has left on it. He’ll heal this nation of that monster’s sickness. 


End file.
